Nemesis

“This house,” said Soames suddenly: “I had hopes when I began it. If they live in it—their children! They say there’s such a thing as Nemesis. Do you believe in it?” “Yes.” “Oh! You do!” —To Let

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Soames Forsyte squeezed his daughter’s hand with all that he had left in him, and gazed at her through the growing haze. He could see only one thing: her face; feel only one thing: her hand around his. His head hurt. The rest of his body was distant. He knew it was the end, and he did not mind. She was there. Fleur was there, and she was all he needed.

“Only you,” he tried to say, and was gone.

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Part 1

I. Soames wakes on the train

Soames Forsyte awoke with a cry and a flinch from a dream of dying, arms raised to protect his head from a blow that did not come. He froze in place, then shook himself. The dream had been so vivid. He’d been old, in his bed with something terribly wrong. He’d been struck in the head somehow. He’d died. Dream? Some dream! It had felt so much more life-like than a dream, as if he’d been there. There’d been a fire, and his daughter, so reckless, so lost in heartbreak of a kind he knew too well, a fire, and then pain. It had all felt so real to him. But now he was in a train, an ordinary train. It was steaming its way—where? Where was he? What the devil was this? He’d been in his bed, in his home of many years, and now a train? Or had he been on a train dreaming of a life?

Was he waking from a dream or falling into one?

Soames shook himself again and removed his top hat—immaculate, shiny, perfect—and set it beside himself on the seat. He ran a hand over his face, felt it recently shaven. He’d fallen asleep, that was all, and had some sort of nightmare. He was awake enough now, however out of sorts he might feel. Sleeping in the daytime always affected him this way. What time was it? He fumbled for his watch: late morning. Why had he fallen asleep? It didn’t feel as if he’d been asleep.

He staggered to his feet and looked around himself. He was in a first-class compartment, alone, thank Heaven. The train was moving at speed, rocking a little as it went. He raised his eyes and looked out the window, then fell forward with hands braced against the glass.

He might have been dreaming before, but he was not dreaming now.

The train was steaming past countryside, under patches of cloud and bursts of sunshine, past fields and hedges and trees. He knew this view. Forty-five years on, and he knew it. He flung the window down and heaved in air. The air was sweet—spring, it was spring. Good Lord, it was the train to Lymington—he knew this view well from dozens of journeys down, journeys taken years ago when he’d been young and at his most lovesick and aching. A long ride, southward to the coast, but he’d made that journey every weekend for two years, forty-five years ago. He had not taken it once since. What the devil was he doing on it now? What had happened the night of the fire? He’d been struck in the head, and surely he hadn’t imagined that!

He stepped back from the window and stared into the pale mirror of the glass, looking for where he’d been struck. Nothing! But he recognised himself with some horror, sure that this was not right. He touched his face again with a shaking hand. A bare face, no moustache, hair dark and falling over his brow as he had not worn it for decades—he knew this face. It was his but it had not been his since the Eighties. This was himself as a young man, untouched by the years, on the train to Lymington.

He was dreaming, and yet dreaming smelled like coal smoke and spring air and a whiff of eau de cologne. Somehow. Why? Which was dream, which was real? Had he dreamed of dying? Had he died? Surely not. And yet, he remembered holding his daughter’s hand, and he remembered accepting the end.

What was this, then? The afterlife? His final judgement?

Get it right this time, Forsyte.

This thought had formed in his head, his pained head, through the fog as he lay on his deathbed, his hand in his daughter’s. A crystalline certainty that was not his own, crackling through him and charging him with purpose. Get it right, Forsyte. Get it right! He had been sent here with a task. Paradise deferred! The gates were barred for him until he did this.

Soames’s knees failed him, and he collapsed back onto the seat. Get it right. Get what right?

He touched his head, then, where he’d been hit. There was no wound. Something had happened to him. He remembered the blow, the pain, then a fog and an inability to move that he’d struggled against. Fleur’s face and her hand in his were the only clear things he remembered, no matter how he tried. Fleur! She would not be here, not for years yet, if at all. That thought pained him again, and again the crystalline clarity: That was not his concern. He had his task set, his unfinished business to sort before he might move on. He had to get it right this time.

What? What had he to get right? What had he got wrong?

Soames sat on that seat in the train, in perfect comfort, in utter misery. He held his entire life before himself to judge. Where had he fallen short of the mark? There had only been one thing that mattered—He shuddered. Her. Irene.

He had to get it right this time with Irene. No entry into heaven for him while that great error was yet upon him. Heaven, or eternal nothingness, or whatever awaited him: the path forward was through Irene. If this were indeed the afterlife—and it surely seemed to be—then he needs must make amends with her. The one loose string in his life left untied.

He’d made mistakes in his life, but none of them had compared with that mistake, from which the others had flowed. He’d pursued her doggedly, refused to accept her refusal, conquered her at last, and made them both utterly miserable for twenty years. He had never apologised to her for that nor admitted she’d been right: they ought never to have married. He would get that right this time, and leave her be. This verdict was just, and he accepted it. He would set it right with Irene, and he would—would he be able to live again? To see an ending to it all? To move on?

No answer came to him.

Get it right. He knew what, but that left how. What was he to do? He gnawed at his upper lip and was discomfited to find no moustache there. He rubbed at the face of his signet ring with his thumb. That soothed him, always had, and he resorted to it often when there was no one to watch him do it. Calmer, he took stock of what he knew. When was this? How old was he? When had it been? The year he’d first proposed to her? Eighty-one, it was 1881, and that meant—his father—his father would be alive. He would see his father again. The stabbing pain of that made him clutch at his chest for a moment. His father, his mother, all his aunts and uncles—even the ones he’d disliked—yes, he would see them again, speak to them again—

Soames screwed his eyes shut over tears. His father, his father. He would know this time to treasure people while they were alive, because life was a fleeting gift. Even Forsytes who lived to the age of ninety left this life too swiftly. His father had lived that long. He knew he would not, and he was at peace with that. He had been at peace, at the end, with his hand in Fleur’s.

He flinched away from that thought. Too much, too much. Think of easier things, simpler things.

Soames breathed in again, more slowly, calming himself deliberately. He took refuge in method, and reviewed his understanding of the matter. He knew where he was; he knew why he was there, if not how; and he knew what lay ahead. He was on the train to Lymington on a spring day. Spring in the air, a red rosebud in his buttonhole, and his dress as careful as it had ever been. He sat up, and smoothed down his coat, touched his four-in-hand tie, his collar, his watch chain, the fob with his school crest. Nothing out of place. He was dressed to the nines, in fact. He’d travelled to Hampshire only once dressed like this. One last thing to verify: yes, in the breast pocket of his morning coat was the flat case with the ring in it.

He was on his way to Lymington to declare himself to her, to propose for the very first time, and to be rejected by her with the flat assertion that they should never marry.

He remembered those words, that pain. He would never forget it. He’d been so nervous and so certain of himself at the same moment, and so completely wrong about what was about to happen. He’d made a terrible mess of it almost from the instant he’d begun speaking, of course. Years later he’d understood that but his callow younger self had not. How old was he today? Twenty-six? Twenty-five. He was twenty-five, and a child. Irene was only eighteen. Good Lord, he’d been such a fool. He’d said the wrong things to her from the very start, and sulked when she’d refused him, and made it ever worse from that moment on. He’d never found a way to make it go right again. He’d never found a way to express his feelings properly to her, not once in his entire life.

He never would.

Getting it right apparently started now, or started when he got off the train and talked with her step-mother about his prospects. Or perhaps he would not do that. Could he simply turn and get on the next train and never return?

No, that was not done. He had to close the matter out like a gentleman.

When? When was the train due in? He looked at the scenery and tried to remember. What had been the train he usually caught? He could not remember that, but he’d always kept a time-table in a coat pocket. He reached for it, found it there, and checked his watch again. It was the same watch he’d worn for decades, a gift from his father when he’d been admitted. He still wore it forty-five years on when the occasion allowed, remembering James’s pride. It felt new now, edges not worn into smoothness by years of his fingers on it. He opened the back: JF to SF, 78. So recent! He was a stripling even now. He tucked it away again and started going through the rest of his pockets, looking for any clues.

Everything else he expected was there in his pockets: his notecase, a propelling pencil, coins, sovereign case, a small leather-bound notebook. The notebook was somewhat odd, given the occasion. He opened it and found at the marker a neat table in his own handwriting summarising his own assets and income, estimates of what varying household sizes would cost him, how adding a lady’s maid would affect the size of the house he might take, and other evidence of extremely careful thought about what he was about to offer Irene. He’d been a cautious man, exactly as she’d said he was. Cautious and careful and correct: well-armed for his discussion with Irene’s step-mother. Now he would do those estimations with ease in his head, and he supposed even his young self could have, but he’d been nervous.

In the breast pocket opposite where the notebook had rested was the ring, hidden in a flat box. He’d chosen it with a little aid from his sister and the jeweller. It was a solitaire diamond, notable but not flashy, perfect for her hand. He had loved buying her jewellery, and she had hated receiving it from him. Well, that was a mistake he would not make a second time. Flowers, or a night at the opera, or an hour walking in a wood quietly: those were gifts she liked, and might tolerate from him. The engagement ring, though, she would wear, eventually. He’d bought it with perfect confidence she would be wearing it by week’s end, and that he would have kissed her cheek, and perhaps even stolen a kiss from her lips.

The more fool he then. He knew better now. She would never wear that ring this time round. Getting it right meant ending things with her immediately, and not letting it draw out over twenty long miserable years. He would propose today, yes. Irene would refuse him, and he would accept it. This time he would bow his head, accept her answer, and not allow his emotion to escape. He would tell her he understood, though he never had, and then walk away. It would be all the easier because of how long it had been that he’d lived with her loathing, and how long he’d spent schooling himself out of love. The last time he’d seen her, he’d admired her as ever, but he’d known her for what she was: a field of ice cold as death.

Soames put his top hat on again. At least he had dressed like a gentleman for the occasion. He would take the blow with his dignity intact. And he grinned a mirthless grin, charged by seventy years of life and bitterness and lonely wanting.

II. Soames states his position

The train pulled into the station on time, with the familiar steam clouds and screech and huff. Soames had taken no luggage with him, only his umbrella against the chance that the spring sunshine would waver. He hooked it over his arm, opened the door of the compartment, and alit. He gave a coin to the porter that was, by the man’s face, too much. Ah, yes, times had changed, and the Nation after War was—he ought not think about that, lest he mention it. They would think him mad to talk of an impossible future. No. He had to keep these things secret, tucked away with so many other secrets about men, their lives, their money, their wives, their affairs. His cousin George and the woman he’d left his money to. How and when each of his uncles and aunts had died. How his own parents had—

Soames shook himself. No need to think about that now. He had his task ahead of him. He strode with ease along the platform, on his toes, weaving through a mid-day crowd. His body was strange to him. He had a spring in his step, as they said. Age had crept upon him, it seemed, and stolen away his vigour with cold fingers while he slept. Some strange miracle—or some strange madness—had returned it. He could run through the streets if he wished, run towards that house, towards her.

His ticket was in the coat pocket he always kept train tickets in, easy to hand. Method had always been his watchword, discipline and method. Few of his quotidian habits had changed over his life. They allowed him to get through things now, with all this ferment and confusion inside him.

Soames had his return ticket punched, exited the station, and paused on the pavement in the spring sunlight. The sea breeze played on his face. The day was lovely: a perfect English spring day, with the sun in a blue sky clear of clouds for a brief time.

What had he done, that day? He’d walked down to the house that Irene lived in with her step-mother and that fellow Lomax, and found only her step-mother at home. Soames had despised that woman, for Irene’s sake as much as for his own, and they had not spent a single moment with her after the wedding day. He had known his duty, however, and had requested her permission and laid out his prospects exactly as etiquette demanded. For propriety’s sake, that was what he ought to do now: explain his position to that loathsome woman, endure the conversation with her that earned her blessing and approval. What a stiff young ass he’d been! He’d known even then that Irene’s step-mother would never have dreamed of withholding permission. She would have seen as well as Soames did that her husband’s eyes lingered at times.

Well, he might as well get it over with. It had been suffering the first time. It would be suffering the second time, but at least he knew what to say, and how it would end. Soames began to walk, along not the shortest way through Lymington’s streets, but along the path that would give him time to collect himself.

As he walked, he rehearsed what he had to say. He’d been rather wordy originally, if he remembered aright, uncertain of himself and not quite in command of the conversation. He had been nervous. Now he need not be; she would grant him permission without any fuss or putting the screws to him the way James had to Dartie. She would demand no specific sum in settlement; no solid guarantees for Irene. She had nothing to bargain with. Soames had already decided what he would settle on Irene, and written it in that small notebook. It was more generous than James would want, within the bounds of acceptable generosity without attracting comment, not that Irene had known this. He’d wanted to be sure she would be secure if anything happened to him. If he settled too much family would know. They would know every detail. Well, he would promise the proper amount and then it would be moot. She would refuse him and he would slink away, silent, noble in defeat.

He arrived at the door he’d passed through so long ago and paused before it in a stew of nostalgia and misery. He had stood here so many times and rung the bell, so full of hope and eager to see her. This would be the last time he would stand at her door. Well, time to take the die in his hand and cast it.

Soames rang the bell and was admitted almost immediately. He said to the maid, Millie: “Mr Forsyte, calling for Mrs Lomax,” and gave her his card. His formal announcement of himself surprised the maid visibly, at which he felt a twitch of annoyance. He let himself be soothed by the patience he’d learned over the years: the little thing was doing her best. He hung his own coat and set his own hat on the stand: she was indeed short.

“Mrs Lomax is in the drawing room, sir.”

He went through the familiar door and into the room where he’d met her so many years ago, and had learned he was not immune to falling in love. She was not there but he could remember her there, remember many conversations in this room, hear her playing. Unless his senses tricked him, there was honey and rose in the air even now, her spirit in the room. It made his chest feel strange. He hadn’t remembered this scent here.

“Do sit down, Mr Forsyte,” her step-mother said, and Soames was shocked back into the present. Or the past, whichever it was.

He sat on the edge of the first chair he’d ever sat upon in this drawing room, with Mrs Lomax across from him. They engaged in inanities. Mrs Lomax was well; the train journey had been much the same as usual. The weather was commented upon, and he found himself able to agree that it was indeed a lovely spring day, and that the flowers were pleasant. Every word said made his anxiety rise; it didn’t matter that he remembered this. He was a suitor again, presenting himself for her approval, and next he would tell her his most important secrets. She offered him sherry, which he accepted; it was indifferent sherry, which hardly mattered. It gave his hands something to do, or he would surely have begun rubbing at his signet, which he did not want to do in front of her.

There was no more delaying it. He must now cross the Rubicon once more. He’d be denied landing upon the opposite shore! He swallowed, and said the words he must say. “Mrs Lomax, I have come today to ask your permission to request your step-daughter’s hand in marriage,” he said. And that had come out stiff as a poker.

“I have been expecting to have this talk for some time, Mr Forsyte.”

“I have come to feel the deepest attachment to Irene.” And oh! that had not been the half of it, had it? Yet one did not say even as much as the half of it aloud like this.

“Indeed,” she said. “You have been most attentive, particularly of late.”

“Yes. You know, I think, my employment. I am a partner in the firm of Forsyte, Bustard, and Forsyte. My father is not a young man, and I will succeed him and serve the needs of all the firm’s clients. I—It is a successful firm.” Which was, at this time, an understatement, and would become even more of one before he was done. He would eventually build up a substantial clientele with a particular sort of person. People who took their money and property seriously were told to come to him, and he would take serious care of them.

Mrs Lomax raised her hands as if to forestall him from continuing in this vein. “Mr Lomax and I have been fortunate indeed to benefit from your advice, Mr Forsyte! One has the utmost confidence in your abilities.”

Soames hid his face briefly behind his sherry glass. It was an excruciating business, this. He was prepared to enumerate his assets if he need do so, thanks to his own careful notes, but he dearly wished not to do so. The gap in circumstance was painful, but she had to know it already.

She asked, “How would you intend to live, Mr Forsyte? One is assured of your prospects, but can you provide for my step-daughter today?”

Ah, here it was. He swallowed a little more sherry, then got to it.

“I have fifteen hundred a year at present, and this is rising.” Her face changed, as he thought it might. He pressed onward: “I intend to lease a house in London, with a cook and two servants. Your step-daughter will have a household that gives her every comfort. I am an only son. My eventual prospects are greater than this, given my father’s own position, but this is what I offer for certain, today.”

She was silent in response, and Soames watched the struggle on her face. Irene was about to do better than she by a long way—or would, if Irene wished to accept—and there was envy and calculation and satisfaction present at once. In the end, satisfaction won.

“I am assured,” Mrs Lomax said, “that Irene will have every advantage, Mr Forsyte. What assurances will you offer her beyond this? What are you prepared to bring into settlement?”

This question made him think better of her; she was at least pressing him on this point. She had nothing to bargain with, but it did not matter to him. He was about to be as generous as he could.

“I am prepared to settle five thousand pounds upon her, enough to reach the sum of around one hundred and fifty pounds a year. I will engage my father to enter upon these agreements on my behalf.”

Mrs Lomax’s face changed yet again, and Soames looked into his nearly empty glass of sherry. She had done the best she could for her step-daughter, and secured her an enviable suitor. And she had, Soames thought. She’d manoeuvred things so that he’d walked into her drawing room, seen Irene, and fallen in love. It had been neatly done.

Mrs Lomax said, however, merely: “Of course. And of your father—I trust your family is looking forward to this match?”

“Yes,” he said. “My mother is most eager to meet you both. My father is delighted by the idea of my marriage.” And indeed, he was, if not to his marriage to this woman specifically. And if his father was right to doubt this time round, Soames would—No. It wouldn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter! She would refuse him. Why was he forgetting this, over and over? He would continue to act as if she might accept him, when he knew what would happen.

The formalities were almost concluded. “I hope I have satisfied you as to my sincerity and my ability to provide for your step-daughter.”

“Indeed you have, Mr Forsyte. I have made my own inquiries about you, and I am most satisfied of your suitability.”

“Quite. I have your permission, then?”

“Indeed you do, Mr Forsyte. Do you intend to speak soon?”

“I will let myself be guided by her, but I hope to speak today.” He felt a moment of anger that she was so eager to rid herself of Irene, but hid it.

“Irene is a good girl, and will be sensible, though of course there is some chance that she might feel obliged to refuse you the first time. A girl almost must. Please do be patient!”

He hadn’t thought of that. Would he be obliged to accept a first refusal? Only if she said what she had said last time. He thought he would know if she were temporising so as not to seem too eager. He felt she would not, however: Irene would either accept him or refuse him definitively. She was not a coquette. However, he said, “I am prepared to wait any time.”

“I am sure I shall be congratulating you both soon enough. Now, I shall fetch her down.”

But Mrs Lomax did not fetch her down: Miss Heron was not at home, and Mrs Lomax was at a loss to explain where she was to poor Mr Forsyte, who had come all this way from London! Her apologies were profuse.

Soames was not dismayed. He knew what her step-mother did not, that Irene was walking in the spring sunshine and would return soon. He reassured Mrs Lomax that he would not leave Lymington without speaking to her step-daughter. However, he would take the opportunity to take his leave of her.

“I was thinking of taking a short walk on the front. May I call later?” he asked. He was a coward, he knew, flinching from the moment he had to accept his rejection, but he could walk, recover his equanimity after this misery, and then endure her refusal.

“Do return for tea, Mr Forsyte. She will surely be here by then.”

“Thank you,” he said, “I shall.”

He left the house with some sense of relief. He’d gone through the first ordeal of two. The second would be easier to bear; he knew the tooth had to come out.

How long had he to wait? An hour? About that much time. He’d walk for an hour along the front, straighten his muddled emotions, then go back to their home to face it. He’d work up his courage to propose to Irene as if it had come to him spontaneously, and hold something of himself back so that she might refuse him less painfully than she had that first time. He reminded himself yet again that he had protected himself by schooling himself out of passion. He no longer loved her, so he could not be hurt. He would have to pretend affection, not stoic endurance. He had lived for years now with a wife who might not love him, but at least was cordial to him. He knew it need not be so cold and loveless and achingly lonely. Irene was wrong for him. There was someone else out there for both of them.

And yet he’d only ever loved her.

Soames turned his face away from the house where his rejection awaited him and walked downward, where the town wanted him to go, towards the sea front.

They were familiar streets. He’d walked them every weekend, or nearly so, for two years, while he’d starved after her and pined and bided his time. There was the florist he’d bought flowers from. There was the inn at the top of the high street where he’d stayed so often the staff had come to know his ways and learned to leave him to his solitude and his morning coffee. When he was not with her he had little to say to anyone else.

He was most certainly not the only person walking this afternoon. It was a beautiful day indeed! Memory had not over-burnished it. The daffodils were out, in flowerbeds outside homes, in squares and parks, everywhere. He leaned against a stone wall overlooking the shingly shore below and the churning waves, felt the wind and the sunshine on his face, and sighed in a way he wouldn’t have in his youth. It was glorious here, in an England untouched by war and grief, by the stain of gas and machine-guns. The day was glorious; the world was glorious! Victoria was on her throne, the Nation was at her zenith, and the sun was out. Soames closed his eyes and breathed in deeply through his nose. The scents flooded him with a rising tide of memory he hadn’t realised had ebbed. Horses, and their dung; coal-smoke; wood-smoke from some hearth. No petrol to foul the air! Only spring flowers and the sea.

Soames felt something in himself relax, some tension ease. It would all turn out right in the end. He let himself smile, this time with genuine pleasure—

A voice shocked him then—a voice he knew, light, almost girlish—speaking his name with happiness. “Soames! I didn’t know you were in Lymington today!”

His eyes flew open and so did his mouth. It was her. Irene, as he remembered her, in a light nothing of a flowered hat and a gauzy wrap, all in white with sage green trim, smiling up at him with genuine happiness. Her gold hair escaped out beneath the hat in a few wisps, windblown and carelessly joyous. His mouth was open but he could not speak, for she was smiling at him and the flood that carried him away now was more than mere memory, it was his heart, expanding in his chest, his breath catching, his head dizzy, dizzy in a way he’d not felt since—

“Soames?”

“You’re smiling at me,” he said, and he could not help but smile back at her. Something was in his blood again, making him almost weak in the knees, making his entire chest feel as if he were bathing in sweet-briar and fire at once. She was so beautiful! Her creamy face, her deep gold hair, her dark eyes! He looked deep into those eyes, such lovely dark eyes with that hair pulled back, a few precious strands escaping from their knot in the back. She was exactly as she had been in that photograph he kept of her behind that photograph of Fleur—the one taken at this time, the one where she was smiling, the one he loved so much because it had been taken when she—when she—when she hadn’t hated him.

Irene was smiling at him!

“Soames, are you quite well? You look—”

His manners returned to him, and he snatched his hat off.

“The sun is shining,” he said, saying words he could not help but remember, because of how many times he’d revisited them in the small hours, wondering where he’d gone wrong. “The sun is shining and all the daffodils are out.”

“It’s spring, Soames!” she said, exactly as she had before. The concern on her face vanished and Irene was looking at him again with careless happiness, meeting his gaze. Oh he was drowning in her eyes as he always had, in her nearness to him, in her smile, so many years of that smile lost because he’d—he’d proposed and got it all wrong and upset her and it had never been right for a single moment after that.

He was supposed to propose now. He had to do it now, to get it right, had to do it and accept her refusal, but he could not bear to. Not now! He could not bear to end that smile. He would let himself feel another hour of it, just a little more of it, and then he would do it and be refused.

So Soames said what he wished he’d said that day: “Will you walk with me? We shouldn’t waste this sunshine.”

“I will,” she said, and laughed. “I’ve been walking, but I shouldn’t mind walking more.”

He felt his face brighten even further—he could not help it! She’d laughed! He half-bowed to her, then resumed his hat.

“Where shall we go?” he said. “I can’t think—” His head was swimming and he had no idea which direction was which. She had smiled at him!

She gestured him gently back the way he had come, and he complied. They were walking side by side, as close as propriety might allow, along the pavement up the high street. His shock eased and settled into a quieter joy, and he found himself able to think. And such odd thoughts he was having, as he walked a careful distance apart from her. He might almost be dancing on the pavement with her, his feet felt so light and he felt so strange.

What an innocent place this was, the past! He must walk beside Irene, careful not to touch her unless there was need, patiently waiting for his moment. He wanted to touch her, and he must not touch her, and it made the accidental brush of her gloved hand against his sleeve send shivers through him. It was quaint and it was also marvellous. He had so recently been in a world with no time for this, a world where his daughter might be alone with a suitor like Michael without comment. The past had such luxury of time—no one was in a rush to get through things. Here now, walking with Irene, he let himself enjoy the luxuries of ritual, of restraint, of ceremony that pretended that one had all the time in the world. The War had changed so much! Patience had been stripped away from them all, from everything, as if all the clocks in the world had started ticking faster.

What did he feel about it? Joy. He felt joy. It was sweet to be walking beside Irene waiting for a chance touch, innocent and sweet and agonising at once. They were walking to the tick of the slower clocks, with the slow grace of the dignified past.

He must look a prize fool to be smiling so much. It was bad form to let his happiness show, but he could not find it in himself to care. Had he smiled this much when he’d been this young? He didn’t remember it. He remembered anger, and frustration, and the bafflement that the fellows around him seemed to find everything so easy and talked with each other so freely while he could not. Then the soothing feeling that he found in work, from thinking the problems of his clients through, and making them all money. Taking care of the family as he had for all those years, the satisfaction of knowing it rested upon his shoulders to manage it all for them. The complex flavours of the law that had comforted him for so long, until he spat it out, bitter poison, at his divorce.

Well, that thought dampened his fervour rather. Soames cleared his throat and looked away from the woman beside him.

“You seem unlike yourself,” Irene said, with a touch of concern in her voice.

He said, “It has been an odd day.” Which was the truth so far as it went.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen you at a loss before today, Soames.”

“No?”

“No. Will you tell me what the matter is?”

“Nothing.”

“And yet something is.”

Soames flushed. “I don’t know what to say.”

“What would you say to any friend who asked?”

Soames was shaken by that. A friend? He glanced sidelong at Irene, who was watching him, not the pavement before them. She thought him a friend. That was—it was good to know that. She did not hate him now, before he had declared himself to her. Well. He must find something to say. Perhaps he might dare to say something like the truth.

“Have you ever felt footsteps on your grave? No, not that. A visitation from a ghost, telling you what things might be if you don’t act?”

“The three ghosts of Christmas?”

“Yes, the Dickens. I had a dream, the sort of dream where one comes face to face with one’s own failings. I, I—saw what might happen if, if I don’t behave better.”

“It’s hard to imagine you having many failings to face.”

“Oh, I did. I do. One in particular, I think, to face.” He grimaced. That, again. The thought of making this woman cry—this happy woman at his side—how had it come to that?

“You’re deeply troubled by the idea of it.”

“Yes. You know how dreams are.”

“Mystifying, elusive, so full of meaning you can’t quite grasp, fading when you reach out for it.”

“It haunts me. It felt so real, so intense, I was convinced it was real, and now I’m not sure. But my dream self made mistakes I wanted to make amends for when I woke.”

“Poor Soames, to feel such guilt over a nightmare,” she murmured. He looked sharply at her to see if she were mocking him, because she would have been, once. But she was not. The expression on her face was pure—it was puzzlement and concern mixed. She said, “Did you come all the way here to tell me about it?”

“I was already on my way here. I had been walking to my office, but on impulse I caught the next train here instead.”

“On impulse?”

“On impulse. The sun is shining—”

“And all the daffodils are out,” she said, repeating his words, her own words.

“And even I feel it,” he said, echoing what she’d said to him, in that past that he remembered that was not what was happening today. What a muddle!

“Yes, even you, cautious Soames. You came to see me because of the daffodils, but to have such a dream you must have fallen asleep on the train.”

She was teasing him, and it was so wonderful that he looked down to hide his blush. “I think I did. It is a long journey.”

Perhaps he had. Perhaps it had been nothing more than his own heart, telling him to change his plans today. And even as he formed that thought, he knew he was wrong. He had been offered a chance to set it right before his final judgement. The heavens had interceded for him, somehow. Why did he deserve it? Perhaps everyone was granted something like this, a second chance, before Nemesis delivered to him his just deserts. Well, he shouldn’t waste it. If it meant bowing his head and accepting what she wanted, he could bear that, couldn’t he? Even after remembering what loving her felt like?

He didn’t have to bear it quite yet. They were side by side, walking slowly but with some purpose Irene held, through a park up a gentle winding path towards a statue. It was surrounded by spring daffodils nodding their heads in the breeze. They paused to read the plaque: some local man had made good in one of the colonial campaigns, won a battle or two, and come home with limbs perhaps intact, perhaps not. This fellow had been a naval sort, several decades before Trafalgar. He’d been memorialised as a bronze and stone figure, a man in tricorne hat with telescope to his eye. Second-rate work, to Soames’s eye, but no doubt the fellow’s family had been delighted to see him here.

He looked to Irene and shrugged. She said, “There’s a lovely view from here, if you wish to sit.”

“I would.”

Soames bowed his head to her, and they sat beside each other on the wood and stone bench at the foot of the statue. It was an almost impossibly beautiful place to sit, graced by a southern view down a grassy green hill, then a drop down to the sea below. Soames was sitting perhaps a shade closer than propriety would dictate. Irene did not seem to notice. He sighed and edged a tiny bit closer. What would it matter? He would enjoy what he could, before he accepted his final rejection.

The blue of the sky was pale, streaked by wispy clouds. The sea was grey-blue at the horizon, a steely green closer to the shore, where the waves dashed themselves ceaselessly against the front. Soames thought about the colours, and about Turner and a handful of other painters who’d captured the English coast and sea. The colours were almost transparent, somehow, grey over green over blue, and the foam over it all. Then there were the daffodils along the path at their feet: so bright, the opposite of the sea, yet equally in motion. It was beautiful, a moment of perfection, shared with her. He’d find a way to have Sargent paint her, this time. That fellow would be able to capture Irene’s skin and hair and that peculiar poise she’d always had.

He screwed his eyes shut. Why was it that he could not seem to accept it? She was smiling at him, yes, but he’d been judged and found wanting and he had to let her go without ever touching her this time.

“Soames?” A very light touch on his arm, and his eyes opened again. “It was only a dream, Soames. I know that you are a good and honourable man in your waking life.”

He breathed out. Was he honourable? What had his cousin George said about him? That he was a dry file, but could be trusted. Whatever that meant. Aloud, he said, “I like to think so, but the dream warned me that I am not always. That I can make mistakes I bitterly regret.”

“I think everyone can.”

“Yes, that is true. Thank you,” he said, because he was indeed grateful. He did feel soothed, though he could not say why. The kindness in her voice, he thought.

Soames had heard her do this a thousand times with other men, had watched her work her soft charm on them so they relaxed and were at peace, cosseted by her. It had never been for him—she’d been so careful never to show this to him—and yet here she was, cosseting him, quite naturally, as if it were purely her nature to do this to whoever was near. He had not been mad, he thought now, to believe she might return his feelings when he’d been courting her. She’d at least thought him a friend. He’d utterly failed his chance the moment he’d opened his mouth, hadn’t he? Said the wrong things, because he hadn’t understood her. Did he understand her now? Could he?

He did not remember as acutely now as he had then her words from the evening they’d listened to the Beethoven Emperor concerto together, but he’d mulled over them often enough since to remember their spirit. She had described what she was feeling as she sat next to him listening to that young Scottish fellow play. He’d heard the admiration in her voice for that boy who at seventeen was already someone Irene knew she’d never match. A love for the thing itself, she’d said, and then described what it felt like to be in love and to give one’s self to it. He hadn’t understood her: how could one give one’s self to music and feel content? What had she meant by that? Perhaps he knew now. Love, she’d said. Giving oneself to feeling, to sensation and emotion, and then feeling content.

She had wondered what he felt about paintings. He knew better now what he felt about them than he had then. Soames thought of hours spent with a loupe in his eye and sometimes not, sprawled on the floor with a painting propped against the wall before him or on an easel, studying it, or simply dreaming. He had always felt something, but it had always been private to him. He’d kept it secret even from Irene. Why?

“Where are you, Soames? You are somewhere else again.”

He flushed, because he was. “I’m thinking about the Beethoven concerto we heard together. What you said to me then, about what touch that fellow d’Albert had, about what he must feel.”

“Oh?” There was amusement in her voice and a little sparkle.

Take a chance, Forsyte. See what Fate has for you. “You asked me how I feel when I look at paintings. You told me not to talk of buying things but—I should like to talk of it, of why, if you will hear me out.”

She raised her eyebrows at him. “I—very well. I will hear you out, Soames.”

He had to find the words, never his strength when she was studying him so intently. She made him doubt himself so deeply. He began hesitantly. “I’ve never talked to anyone about this. I don’t think anyone but you has ever asked.”

“No one at all?”

“No. When you asked, I had no answer to hand. But—when one sees a painting in a dealer’s gallery, it’s there for such a short time. When a painting is bought, it’s taken away by its buyer to hang on a wall in their home, for them and no one else to look at. Perhaps not even that, perhaps it sits wrapped in paper in a garret. Wherever it is, I can’t look at it any more. And I might want to see it because—”

He flicked a glance sidelong at her to see if he’d lost her but she was still intent on him, brow furrowed, that lovely face uncharacteristically solemn.

“Because?”

“I look at the colours, the feeling in them, the motion in the brushwork. I let myself be in that place, dreaming over what it might be to be there, looking at that instead of wherever it is that I am.”

He didn’t think he’d ever heard Irene so silent before, or seen her so deeply in thought—at least not without music to listen to.

“I didn’t expect you to say that,” Irene said, eventually.

The words came more easily to him, now that he knew she was listening and truly hearing him. “When I was in Paris, I saw some paintings by a fellow named Cézanne, no one you should know, but I think he’ll be a big name some day. I kept going back to look at them. He’s nobody! His works were at a paint shop, not a gallery, but I kept trying to talk myself into buying them. There was something there. He’d painted the mountains near his home, and the way he caught the light—the brushwork, the colour—I would go and stand there and be somewhere else. I wanted to look at them for hours, to dream over them forever. I knew they were good, but was I right? Were they worth anything? And then one day they were gone. Someone else had bought them and I’d lost my chance. For the rest of my life, I—well, I suspect I shall regret my caution.”

And indeed he had, and though he’d eventually managed to snatch up something from the man’s later watercolour work, it had not been the same. He’d missed what he’d loved best.

Now he had come to it, the moment he told her something deeper. “It’s different to how you feel about music, I know. I should like to show you the paintings I have and tell you how I feel when I look at them, what I think about, and perhaps you could tell me what you feel. I can’t show you that Cézanne because I didn’t buy it, and I so wish I had. I think you might have liked it.”

He glanced very rapidly to the side at her, and took another risk. “I did buy a Monet, a little thing—the dealer had more of them than he wanted—and it’s lovely. I have been thinking, that if I am successful at this, if I can collect the right sort of thing, I might leave them to the Nation some day, and everyone might look at them.” And that was what was happening right now, he presumed. When he woke up from this dream, he’d find himself in his coffin and his paintings wrapped in paper again, packed up to be sent off. But now, today, while he sat on a stone bench with Irene in the spring sunlight, where would they be?

“Today they’re hung on the wall in my chambers, and I have two leaning against the wall by my desk. I haven’t the space to hang them, though I haven’t very many.”

“You look at them and dream.”

“I do. And now you know what I feel when I stand in solemn galleries.”

Having finished revealing himself to her with words, Soames could meet her eyes again. She had been studying him intently the entire time, he knew, focused on him almost alarmingly. She hadn’t ever done this before. He had caught her interest in a way he hadn’t ever before. Had it always been as easy as this? Reveal himself to her, tell her his secrets, and she would feel sympathy with him, would understand him enough not to hate him. Did he understand her? He thought he might, at least a little, better than he had before. Listen to her, take her at her word, don’t behave as if she wanted the same thing that his sister Winifred might want. She wasn’t Winifred. She didn’t want a string of pearls from him. She wanted a walk on a spring day, an evening listening to that boy d’Albert again, or for him to show his heart to her.

It was terrifying to expose his secrets. He was being swept out to sea on a flood tide of emotion. Did it lead on to fortune or his ruin again? He had no notion of what might happen next.

Eventually Irene broke the silence. “I think that is more than you have ever told me about yourself before,” she said.

“I don’t talk of myself.”

“You don’t. Why not?”

Soames opened his mouth to answer then closed it again. Why didn’t he? “I think no one has ever wanted to hear.”

“Nobody knew how much was going on inside you!”

He didn’t know what to say to that. Was there a lot going on inside him? He’d always thought he’d had the usual amount going on, with perhaps the sort of distress that only visits people clever enough to see some things clearly. He’d known cleverer men than he, but there had been times when he’d wished he’d understood less of the world around him. It would have been easier to bear, not understanding how awkward he was amongst his fellows, how uncomfortable he was with anyone outside his family. And even with them!

“And now you are silent once more.” There was a little teasing in Irene’s voice, and a smile in the corner of her mouth that made his heart ache again.

He returned the smile and said, “I am practised with silence.”

“I think I prefer a Soames who talks.”

“Then I shall, perhaps. To you.”

“Me?”

“You’re the only one who—Well. I can’t promise to say all that much.”

She laughed, a lovely sound that he had never heard enough in his life, and hadn’t heard at all after a certain horrible time. He could feel her near enough that he knew her scent. Dried rose petals and honey! What might have been cloyingly sweet on another woman was perfect on Irene. He’d always loved that scent. It had always made his head swim, as it was swimming now.

He still had not proposed. He couldn’t bear to do it.

Church bells, all out of time with each other, rang out up and away from the esplanade. And then one bell, stronger than the rest, rang out clearly over the town, four decisive strokes. Soames reached for his waistcoat and pulled out his watch. It was touching four, and that late church bell had the right time.

He said, “Tea-time. Later than I thought. Shall we return to your step-mother’s home?”

“Must we?”

“I could sit here for hours yet with you and watch the sun set and the moon rise, but I think we must.”

“Hours yet?”

“As long as you will sit with me,” he said. It might have been flirting, if he’d managed to say it with anything other than husky intensity, but he’d never been able to flirt.

Irene had no answer for him, for they were holding each other’s gaze again. It took everything Soames had to break that gaze, but he did so. He broke away painfully, aware that they had been long enough away. Irene’s step-mother did not chaperone them as tightly as a more old-fashioned parent might, but even she had her limits.

He said, “We can talk over tea.”

But they could not talk over tea: both Irene’s step-mother and her husband the blustering Lomax were there, filling the drawing room with chatter and inanities and demands for their attention. Soames was sitting next to Irene, and stealing moments to look at her and see that she shared his frustrations, but there was no opportunity at all to talk. It was interminable misery brightened by moments of sweetness when he caught her eye. He managed to stay polite, and show all the good manners he ought, but he could not help that he could only look at Irene, only notice what she did and said. It was as if he were seeing her for the first time all over again, feeling once again that strange sensation that he’d known her all his life, only this time he had. Did he know her this time? Could he know her?

After tea, he looked at his watch and saw that he had time to make the next train to London, so long as he did not waste too much time in farewells. If he had to make his farewells, he would rather they be swift: if he was to part with her, he would prefer to do so without needing to say anything to those two. To his relief, Mrs Lomax told Irene to see Mr Forsyte to the door—as obvious a stratagem as there was, as if stratagems mattered in the least to Soames’s heart. Perhaps it was Irene that Mrs Lomax was trying to manoeuvre, and perhaps again it might once have been useful. But today! Today after the walk and their conversation, it did not matter what that woman did. Or so he hoped.

Soames shrugged his coat on and donned his top hat, but left his gloves off. She might wish to shake hands! He stood with her in the hall inside the door and lingered for a moment. He said, “May I call again soon?”

“So formal! Will you call tomorrow morning?”

“No, I must return to London tonight.”

“It was truly an impulse, then.”

“One I do not regret.” He flushed, and bent his head to break her gaze. He was in such danger of speaking before he was ready to speak. “When shall I call next?”

“Are you able to come to Lymington this weekend?”

“Yes,” he said, without pausing to think. He looked up and oh! those dark eyes. He was drowning in them again, and she wasn’t looking away. What had happened? Something had happened. And then she was extending her hand, and he was touching it for a long moment, palm to palm, and he knew he was lost. Yes, he was in love again; his heart had been unguarded and she’d stolen it again. But her heart? Had her heart changed? Dared he even think it?

Soames turned, and fled.

III. A family reunion

The three hours of the train up to London passed quickly for Soames. He sat wedged against the window of his compartment, pretending the florid gentleman with the newspaper sitting across from him did not exist, and thought about what had just happened to him. He’d meant to end it today and he hadn’t. He was a suitor again. He’d slipped immediately and without hesitation into the rituals of courtship. He’d even arranged to send flowers to her before catching his train: white roses, and some things the florist told him he ought to send to the young lady. He’d told her that he would wish to send more flowers: every day of the week, if it could be arranged. She’d nodded at him knowingly; he already ran an account with her. He’d forgotten that. The details had rusted in his memory over the years, it seemed, but the mechanisms of his past life ran well-oiled. He’d been a careful man in his youth, a careful suitor, from noting exactly how much he had to spend on a household with her to running exact accounts with florists.

He was a less careful man in his old age. He confessed it. He’d watched his money less carefully, knowing that he had enough, and that he had the ability to be generous. Not that this was of the least importance. What mattered was—was—

He’d fallen in love again. One look at her, one smile from her and he had thrown his cap over the windmill again, despite everything he knew about her. She would be faithless, she would love other men and never him, but he could not stop himself. He was fated to love her. Grand passion. He might warn himself, he might beg himself to remember how much it would hurt, but he would still give his entire heart to her. But she had been warm to him, welcoming—had she truly been different? More than merely polite?

No, he thought. She had been the same. It was he who’d been different. He’d behaved differently towards her and she had responded to that. What had she said in that past that had not repeated itself today? A man shows interest, and something in the woman responds. Had there been a spark, a little flare of something when they’d smiled and held each other’s gaze for so long? He’d suffered and been through the pains of love and heartbreak and loneliness: he was not the same man as the baffled, silent, sulking youth he’d been. Did she feel that difference in him? She was still a girl and he—he’d lived an entire life! If he had indeed lived it, and it hadn’t been a mad dream. Dream or not, it had changed him. He remembered a life, heartbreak, two wives, a daughter, a great war, a son-in-law, a grandson. He’d felt loss and grief. He had felt love, and at the end he’d known his daughter loved him. It had done something to him. The Soames who’d been through the fire might be a Soames who could make love to Irene and perhaps express to her how he felt.

What would he do with this?

Not what he had done before.

He would ask her to marry him, with all his heart and soul in it, with words she might respond to. He did not fear his fate; he’d put it to the touch. All he need do was accept her response. If she refused him he’d find some girl or other his mother flung his way, some nice English girl, and give his father a grandson he could watch grow up, a Young James to fulfil his deepest wish. He would make do, knowing that it was possible to get on with a wife who at least tolerated him. If Irene did not love him, he would find a way forward without her. If she did care for him—that he did not know what to do about. No, he had to plan on being told she felt nothing, and on needing to find another woman to be his wife. It would hurt like the devil again because he’d been a fool again, but that was the punishment he had to bear.

These thoughts made him gloomy, but occupied him through his arrival in London at Waterloo, long after dark had fallen and the weather had turned to cool spring showers. He took a cab to Park Lane, the homing instinct strong in him, knowing himself exhausted after a long day, an eternal day, a day in which he’d died and risen from the dead, or a day in which he’d dreamed years of a life—whichever it was, he had been overwrought for far more time than he could well bear. He wanted to be at home, to be kissed by his mother, to sleep in his boyhood bed in safety. But if he went home, another trial was ahead of him, and he didn’t know how he would bear it or what it would do to him.

When he arrived at his father’s home, he found that he had been looked for. The door opened the moment his foot touched the front step, and he was ushered inside by his father’s butler. Soames had to look at him twice, for Warmson was shockingly young.

“Good evening,” Soames said, controlling himself. He’d seen Warmson recently, had patronised the establishment he ran most admirably with his wife—once his mother’s maid—founded with the money James had left him. Here he was, a young man, already a master of his craft, helping Soames take his coat off.

“Mr Forsyte has been asking for you, sir,” Warmson said, and in his eyes Soames could read the message: his father was in a state.

“Is there a bit of cold supper for me, do you think?”

“I shall inquire of Cook, sir.”

“Thank you. He’s in the drawing room? I’ll go to him directly.” When Warmson had hung his coat and turned to go below stairs, Soames paused and breathed.

Park Lane. His father’s house. Merely standing in the entry moved him: he had been born here; he had held his father’s hand in his when his father had passed away here—Soames flinched away from that thought, which still hurt, all these years later. It was as he remembered it, and yet he had forgotten so much. He had forgotten the smell of gas lamps and the warm flicker of their light, the deep shadows in the corners of the rooms. It was an assault upon his heart, a barrage of light and shadow and scent. And it was about to worsen. Now he had to guard himself. He had to greet his father as if he did not remember his death, did not remember saying goodbye to him, did not remember seeing his coffin put into the family mausoleum in Highgate. Control. Mastery. Hide his emotion.

Soames dug his fingernails into his palms and made his way up to the drawing room, slowly, planning what he was to say.

Bracing himself did nothing for him: it was a blow to his heart to see them both, his mother, his father, in that drawing room, where so much had happened over so many years. They were both so alive, so vibrant. His mother was just fifty, so young yet. She exclaimed when she saw him and came running to him. What was he to do with these feelings? It was all too much, the day had been too long and too full of emotion. He felt his throat close up and his eyes burn. He said nothing at all and wrapped his arms around her quite tightly, as he certainly never had during her life before. He had learned by living what a parent wanted. He would do this properly and express his affection to her as he had wanted Fleur to express her affection to him.

“Mother,” he said, and held on.

“My dear boy, what’s come over you? Where have you been? Your father has been in such a state.”

He pressed a kiss to her forehead, then another. “I spent the day with Miss Heron.”

His mother pulled away from him to look up into his face. “Is there news? Are we to meet her soon?”

“No news,” he said. “I haven’t any news yet.” But his face was burning again, and he could not help his tiny smile when he met his mother’s eye. And that was gratifying, the way his mother’s face lit up with joy for him. Emily had always had a pure love for her children, an uncomplicated partiality that was without a single drop of impurity or wish for anyone else’s failure. If Soames and Winifred were happy, Emily was happy. And she had loved his father steadily throughout their lives together, which was as much as any man could wish for.

Soames released his mother and looked to his father, who was standing by the coal fire with his back turned to them, for all the world like a cat sulking after its owner had left it alone, pretending indifference. Soames ignored this and went to him. He touched his father’s shoulder, diffidently.

James turned, arms already in motion. “Where have you been, my boy? You weren’t in the office! They didn’t tell me you were planning on being away today! Nobody could tell me anything! I—”

He looked Soames full in the face, and—and Soames simply wept. He couldn’t prevent himself. Twenty-five years gone, his father was, and here he was, past his prime but still hale and sharp-witted, still the first name on the brass at the firm they shared with that poor stick of a fellow Bustard: here he was, thin and tall and all angles in Soames’s arms. Soames kissed his father’s cheek, all he could reach, and struggled to regain his composure.

“Soames! What’s come over you? I don’t know, I can’t tell—what’s this all about? What’s happened?”

“Nothing at all,” he said, knowing as he spoke that no one in the room believed him.

“Something’s the matter! What is it?”

What to say? The truth, or some fragment of it. “I spent the day in Lymington.”

James jerked in his arms. “What business have you down there?”

Soames released his father and did his best to find enough cool reserve to look like himself again. “I called on Miss Heron.” As his father knew very well, this was the only thing he ever did down there.

“What? Why would you run off and spend all day down there, vanishing without a word—”

His eyebrow lifted, and he sniffed. “I wanted to call on her.”

“Don’t be foolish! You know she hasn’t got any money.”

Soames’s chin went up. Confound it, he’d forgotten this argument. “I fail to see why that matters.”

“You say that now!”

His chin solidified. “I’ll do what I think best.”

“Have you gone and—”

“Not yet.” Soames saw his father relax, and felt immediately that he ought to tell him that he intended to ask her, that he would marry her if she wanted him. And he would.

“What’s wrong, then? What’s all the to-do?”

What was he to say to this? The truth was unspeakable. “I hope to see Miss Heron again on Saturday.”

“There you go!”

“Soames will do the right thing,” Emily said, with her eternal stout loyalty. There she was taking his arm, and looking up at him as if she saw right through him, which she might well. And at that moment Warmson appeared to announce that there was a bit of cold supper and would Mr Soames care to come to the dining room. He would indeed care to, and he did.

Soames found his equanimity again over what was a most generous cold supper—someone in the kitchen had made a fuss on short notice. There was cold ham and bread with butter, and a bit of hot clear soup, with his father’s entirely drinkable sherry, to feed a man who’d been without a meal for what felt like an eternity and possibly was. His body told him to eat even if his mind was in a tumult and his heart was alternating between sweet joy and pain. He ate, with his mother sitting with him, and his father pacing around until his mother told him in no uncertain terms to leave. Soames loved his father, but felt deep relief to see him leave the dining room.

His mother looked at him meaningfully, and Soames felt the weight of that in a way he could not ignore. “Please don’t tell Father,” he said to her, “but I spoke to Miss Heron’s step-mother today.”

“My dear boy,” she said.

“I didn’t have the opportunity to speak to Irene.”

“You will soon enough, I am sure.”

“I—Yes.” The confusion in him was almost unbearable at that moment. His mother was alive, and looking at him fondly. He wanted to give her good news, to tell her that her silent and difficult son might be marrying at last, but he also knew that he was not going to tell her that. Hope burned in his heart despite his resolution to accept Irene’s refusal.

He finished his dinner and his wine, kissed his mother, and fled once again away from people, upstairs to his boyhood room, seeking solitude. He closed the door of his bedroom against the world with relief.

He leaned his forehead against the closed door, and breathed. He was alone at last. He could think now. But—but there he was, in his boyhood room, kept for him from his birth until the house went under the hammer after his father’s death: forty-six years of his life, spent with this room as a refuge, no matter where it was he had ordinarily hung his hat. He’d slept here, studied here, come home to this room from school, from travel, from work, from heartbreak. At this moment he had his own chambers, which he had better remind himself about—where the deuce had they been? But this room was still home. His father fretted when he wasn’t there at the breakfast table to be a steadying force, so Soames found himself still sleeping here at times, saying nothing about why he was there, merely drinking coffee and eating toast as a solid presence. If his father wanted him at home, Soames would be at home. He had never been able to deny his father anything the man wanted, not when it was in his power. Today had been the closest he’d ever come to saying any words of affection, and he would be at pains never to be so unreserved about his emotions again, but he was certain his father understood him. He himself understood what his father meant when he fussed, and always had.

His bedroom! This was the only place he knew he could find peace, and merely being here unleashed upon him a torrent of emotion he could not bear. What an utterly confusing mess it all was. He spun his signet ring around on his finger and rubbed his thumb against it. He breathed in and out, slowly, again—a long breath, and a pause. He was calmer now. He pushed himself away from the door. Here was his safety: his room, a gas lamp on the wall burning with that hiss and long-forgotten smell, a candle at his bedside already lit, glowing warm. There was only that circle of flickering light at his bedside, shadows in the corners, yet it was safe, known. His boyhood books were on the shelves, alongside the law books he’d studied while doing his articles before sitting for his examinations. He need not feel distressed to see this.

Another stroke of his thumb along the surface of the ring. His initials, in intaglio, his thumb running along it, somehow making him feel better. This was something he’d never tell even Irene, had been at extreme pains to hide from her. So many little shames to hide. He shivered and spun the ring around back into its proper place on his finger.

Time to go to bed now. He was exhausted beyond words.

Soames emptied his pockets into a bowl upon the chest of drawers where he’d always emptied them: pocket watch and double chain, coins, a small box of cachous, handkerchief with his initials in the corner, a silver case with his calling cards advertising his club. No cigarette case; he didn’t smoke often at this age, hadn’t taken up cigars until the War had moved him to it. Irene didn’t like tobacco. He shouldn’t take it up again, he thought.

Soames hung his morning coat and tie neatly on the clothes-horse. The coat he’d worn today was a good one. He rather liked the cut. He’d had a good tailor for years before the War, not showy, but steady. How little had changed while so much had changed! He’d been much the same weight his entire life, though he was thinner than usual just now. He looked at himself in the mirror, just enough light to see, lifted his shirt, and noted that he could almost count his ribs. Much thinner than usual: as thin as he’d been at the worst of the War. He supposed he’d been doing a great deal of pining and not much eating hanging about her. He hadn’t eaten much today, after all. If he remembered aright, it had become worse during the long months of rejection before it got better with his engagement and all the Forsyte family dinners that had followed. But he’d have fitted into these clothes yesterday—yesterday in ’26—nearly as well as he had fitted them today. A lifetime of abstemious habits and self-denial had its effects.

She’d been the same as well, last he had seen her, in June’s gallery, so close before his end. Silver hair instead of gold, thinner in figure, but to his eyes just as beautiful. So unchanged. They would have grandchildren this time, if all went well, and perhaps—Perhaps? Nonsense. He was going to propose on Saturday, perhaps immediately upon meeting her, then she was going to refuse him, and he was going to accept it gracefully this time, go directly home, and be comforted by his mother. No sulky burning anger, no protests, no pressure, no begging on bended knee. No matter that he’d let this flood back on himself, this damned flood, that would hurt him so.

No, not straight home. First he would give Irene his firm’s card and tell her that if she needed assistance in any way she was to call upon him directly, that he cared about her enough that he would be there for her to act on her behalf. And he would do so; he would be her broken-hearted knight, upright and dignified and sad. There was something rather pleasing in that vision, and he could imagine the painting in his head: Leighton, perhaps, something he’d seen once, or that Burne-Jones fellow. Not his thing, but he could appreciate the work.

What if she accepted him?

Don’t even dare wonder, Forsyte.

But she might.

Soames pulled on a warm clean nightshirt. The servants had anticipated that he would stay the night. How had they known? He turned down the lamp and blew out the candle. Beeswax: he hadn’t smelled a beeswax candle in years. Beeswax and coal gas. The past had scents he hadn’t remembered trading away for petrol. Petrol and electric plants and hot water piped upstairs. He slid himself between warm clean sheets, and found himself once again in the perfect comfort of Emily’s home. She’d always had that touch. How he’d missed it! How he’d missed her! Fleur! He had died and what was Fleur doing without him? He turned onto his side, certain he would never be able to sleep with all this going on inside him.

Soames fell asleep almost immediately, and if he dreamed, he remembered nothing of it.

IV. Soames meets his nephew

The next day Soames walked from Park Lane to his chambers off Victoria Street—the address was on his letterhead, and the latchkey in his pocket. When he arrived he found his dusty memory brushed clean. He’d lived here until his marriage. There was the cane chair he’d lain in so many nights when he couldn’t sleep for the want of her. There were his paintings on the wall. There was his bed, his wardrobe, the desk where he worked at night because there was no time he was not working at this time of his life. Correction: no time save when he was hanging about her, pining. It had been an odd span of years for him, the late seventies until his marriage in eighty-three. He’d finished his articles and kept on working just as hard.

There was scant trace of him here beyond the paintings, no decoration he cared about, merely his clothing and the books he used for work. Bachelor’s rooms! They were a place to sleep and change, no more. He bathed, dressed in frock-coat and dark trousers with a blue stripe and walked to his office at the time he always had, a few minutes ahead of his father. There it was in the Poultry: Forsyte, Bustard, and Forsyte, commissioners for oaths. If he was to live his life as he supposed he’d been instructed to, to work he must go—not that he minded! The Law had changed over the forty-five years that had passed, but the changes were well within his grasp even now. This was his métier. He had studied and crammed before his examinations, but he had passed them without any doubt about the results. He had done more than well at them, in fact. He had mastered the Law then, and he’d retained his mastery through his life.

Soames had not thought twice about following his father into the Law. They’d all assumed he would, and he hadn’t questioned it in the least. It had suited him; he’d done better than his father had. He had no regrets. And so he returned to work as a solicitor in this second life, a little wiser than he’d been, a little cannier. The long-headed chap would now also be a sage, drawing wisdom from a mysteriously deep well. It was rather pleasing to contemplate.

The immediate details that had faded from his memory were restored to it by the meticulous records he’d always kept of his work, and by the assistance of his clerk Gradman. Gradman always had to hand what he did not. Had he appreciated Gradman enough through the years? He felt he had perhaps not quite paid the man fully what he was worth, and he would make amends for that after his father was out of the way to object. Gradman had driven him to school when he was a boy, and was in harness in Cuthcott, Kingson, and Forsyte, still tending to Forsyte matters, when Soames had, well, died. That was faithful service. Soames would take steps now. He would likely gain a reputation for sentimentality and being a soft touch if he were not careful, but confound that. He would do what he thought best.

There were feelings rising in his chest even here. No place was safe from these feelings! His father was in the next room, fussing about and doing his own work. James had begun his slow withdrawal from active partnership a few years after this time, and did not take on many new clients. He mostly attended to Forsyte matters and to important clients, a duty that had fallen to Soames in his turn, but there was enough of this work to bring him to the office daily. It would not last forever, this time of being a junior partner to his father, but he would savour it this time round. Last time he’d been eager to make his own mark, ambitious, and more energetic than his father had been. It had been age, he suspected now. James perhaps felt he’d made enough money and had done enough. Certainly Soames had eventually reached that point in his own life. Making money was not everything—not that he would ever admit this to a roomful of his family.

He made certain other visits to tradesmen in London that day, including a shop where sheet music was sold. There he consulted over several purchases.

Soames wrote to Mrs Lomax Tuesday morning, informing her he should be in Lymington on the Saturday, and begging to know if he might call on them. He also asked her to express his well-wishes to Irene, and asked if she might enjoy the trifle he was sending under separate cover.

It tweaked his nerves to take this risk: it was not chocolates or flowers or the other safe things he’d given her. But he was doing things right this time, and that meant doing things differently from how he had the first time. Irene was who she was, and not someone else. Why had it taken him so long to understand that? To understand her? What she wanted was not a mystery. She’d told him all along, with every word she’d spoken to him during their courtship.

She’d stopped speaking to him during their marriage. He was unsure even now whose fault that was. He’d wanted her to continue talking, but she hadn’t.

He received a reply Thursday morning at his chambers: they were delighted to learn this, and Mrs Lomax suggested that perhaps they might attend the assembly ball. It was the end of the season, and this was their last opportunity. This was not something he had done with Irene before, they having restricted themselves to concerts and other less active musical performances. Mrs Lomax concluded with a jest, asking if he knew how to dance, which of course he did, having been sent to the usual lessons at the usual academy at the appropriate age. The jest was likely passed along from Irene, teasing him not being something Mrs Lomax would do.

There was a pressed daffodil tucked into the folded paper—it had to have been from Irene. It made him smile rather absurdly as he sat in his rooms with note and flower in hand. Soames did not know how to respond to either the jest or the flower in kind. So he did not, but instead wrote a note saying simply that he would be honoured, and he looked forward to escorting Miss Heron.

He tucked both away into the pocket-book where he kept his keepsakes of her, secreted away in his handkerchief drawer. He still had his keepsakes of her forty-five years on, and someone would be discovering them and wondering at the old man and asking who the girl was. Well, he wasn’t alive to be embarrassed. And what an odd thought that was to have.

Here he was in his office later in the morning, the smell of ink in his nose, listening to the murmur of the clerks and the scratch of his stylographic pen on paper as he wrote out a brief for a case. His client wanted to bring suit; possession was nine points of the law and there was a contract here besides. Soames was of the opinion this was obvious, and was writing as much in economical prose. He felt alive enough, but somewhere he was dead. Morbid! Perhaps it had been a dream, a warning shot across his bow: there he might go if he did not take care. Soames was no philosopher, and found himself unable to make anything of it other than what he had first thought: that the deity was giving him a second chance of going to his rest without unfinished business. Or Nemesis had visited him, and this was her justice: that he have the burden of setting it right.

He spent a quiet hour with his books reviewing his assets. He’d made his notes in that little notebook about total values, and reasonable expenditures, but he needed to know what he was managing just now. Time had blurred the details in his own head; a look at his books refreshed them. Now he had what he needed to hold up his end of the settlement, if it should happen.

A second pressed daffodil arrived in his post Friday morning, with a brief note from Irene herself expressing her wish that he would allow her to thank him by performing his kind gift for him on the Saturday. He made no reply to this, but tucked it away with the other keepsakes of her. That flame of hope within him burned brighter.

Soames called on Winifred in Green Street later that afternoon. She was only now out of her lying-in period, entirely vigorous and bored. He was admitted to the nursery upstairs, trusted brother he, and found her sitting quite at ease in an armchair, comfortable in a tea gown, lending-library novel in her lap. A handsome bassinet with her infant son was close at hand beside her: his own gift to the nursery furnishings, if he recalled correctly.

“Winifred, you look well,” he said, and reached down to embrace her carefully.

“Thank you, dear.”

He kissed Winifred’s forehead and rose to look down at her. She did look well, quite radiant, a little plump yet after the birth. He felt relieved to see her, the same Winifred as ever, a fixed point in his life. He had cared for Winifred more than for anyone but Irene and Fleur. She’d been his rock and his ally for years, through a long lonely life, and he keenly appreciated her. She knew that, though. He had no unpaid debts on his account here.

Soames pulled the nearby chair closer to her armchair and sat. He leaned over the bassinet to take a good look at his new nephew. He dimly remembered visiting shortly after the birth with his parents to be shown the new addition to the family. The infant had been squalling fit to deafen. Now he was quiet, eyes open, looking entirely harmless all wrapped in white blankets. Soames remembered Fleur at this age, a tiny thing, dark cloudy eyes not yet the grey they would become, and a button of a nose. He smiled down and touched his new nephew’s fat pink hand.

“I am to be his godfather, am I?”

“It’s you or Cousin George.”

“That chap.”

“Oh, George is a droll. I enjoy him. I don’t suppose it matters much.”

“Not likely to get much Christian education out of either of us. He’ll get a rather better present out of me.”

“George is a bit scattered, I do admit,” Winifred said. “But Soames! Mama came by yesterday to tell me all about the state Papa is in, all about you.”

“He’s always in a state,” Soames said, truthfully enough. He straightened up and began to rock the bassinet, gently. He caught the day nurse in the corner making some motion with her knitting.

“Mama told me you were quite unlike yourself, and now that you’re here, I can see it for myself.”

“How so?”

“Look at you!”

“What do you mean?”

“The last time you called you were quite obviously pretending to like Publius. Nurse told me you said something about the racket and escaped quick as you could. And now you’re smiling and rocking him. I wasn’t aware you knew how.”

“Publius?” Soames said. “What sort of name is Publius?”

“Latin. Publius Valerius.”

“The lesser Publicola. Still time to change it.”

“Don’t you try to distract me, brother. You’re behaving in a way the Soames I know never has. And Mama told me you lifted Papa off his feet when you came home after so mysteriously disappearing all day.”

He ought to glare at her and intimidate her into backing away from questioning his behaviour, as was his habit. One withering look, and people would shrink away. But this was Winifred. He could not bring himself to do it.

“I asked for her step-mother’s permission,” he said, and felt his cheeks burn yet again. Winifred was safe, surely; she wouldn’t make a guy of him, and she’d always known how he felt about Irene. He’d told her before he’d told anyone, and asked her advice when he would not have asked any one else’s. “I think she might—that is, I think I have a chance.”

“Oh, Soames!” Winifred reached out and took his hand. “Oh, I’m so glad for you.”

“Now, let’s not anticipate. I haven’t asked her yet. But, she was happy to see me when I—that is—perhaps—I’m going to see her again tomorrow.”

“You have the ring, then?”

“I have,” he said, and flushed deeper still.

“Well, you’ll have to ask her now, dear.” Winifred was teasing him, of course, but the die was cast, rather.

Did he have a chance? He was not supposed to. She was supposed to feel nothing for him, yet a corner of his heart felt differently. A corner of his heart knew hope for the first time in all the long years since he’d met her. He was uncertain of himself, afraid, braced for the pain, but he hoped. And oh what sweet pain that was!

The infant made a sound at him, no meaning in it, a squall and a flail of a hand. Spit bubbled from his mouth, and a little trail led away into the blankets.

“Has he eaten?” Soames asked.

“I fed him a few minutes before you called.”

He took a cloth and carefully wiped the infant’s face clean. In the corner of his eye he saw the child’s nurse start up, then settle back down, as she had when he’d started rocking the bassinet. Such nonsense, fretting. He’d done this for young Kit, the sweet duty of a grandfather, but it had been so long since he’d done it for Fleur! He remembered sitting with Annette on their bed and watching her nurse Fleur, and how utterly overwhelmed he’d been at that moment. No doubt it was “chic” to nurse babies one’s self just now, which was why Winifred was doing it. Soames approved, without regard to fashion. Mothers ought to nurse their own children. It was the best for the child and it made for wonderful paintings. And watching Annette with Fleur had fed that deep glow of happiness in him: he was a father at last! Never mind that he’d lost his own father, never mind his new awareness that he and Annette would never be close. They’d been united over Fleur at that moment, and the second love of his life had begun. He was glad Winifred had this now.

Would he and Irene unite over, over—Would there be a Fleur for them? Stop thinking about that, Forsyte! There was no profit to it. It would happen or not, and his duty was to accept it.

He returned to rocking the bassinet absently. “And where is Dartie?”

“At his club, I think.”

Soames could not look at her as he asked this, but instead concentrated on the bassinet, and his drowsing nephew. “He should be here doing this. You’ll tell me if the fellow misbehaves, won’t you?”

“What on earth—”

“Never mind, never mind. I’m only fussing. But if he turns flighty on you, I should like to know. The man’s a father now.”

“I haven’t the least worry about him, Soames, unlike you! You should keep your mind on your young lady and asking her properly. I am so looking forward to meeting her.”

“Hmm,” Soames said. “You won’t much like her step-mother. Irene, however—” He was aware he was smiling fatuously again. He concentrated on the infant to distract himself. “He’s asleep. Winifred, Publius Valerius, really?”

“Monty suggested it, and I think it quite chic.”

Soames cast up his eyes. “It’s not chic in the least. I shan’t try to talk you out of it, but I predict you’ll regret it.”

“You have no idea what’s chic and what’s not, dear brother.”

“And why would I? I pay no attention to such things.”

“My brother has returned. The world is right again.”

Soames said something acerbic to her, knowing she saw right through him, and took his leave.

V. Irene plays Mozart

Soames went down to Lymington on the Saturday morning express, Gladstone bag in hand. He would be staying the night and returning to London after tea-time Sunday. The town was large enough to have a quite grand hotel for the tourist season, but Soames stayed in the Angel Inn at the top of the high street, beside which the assembly hall had been built. He was well-known by the landlord. He might have preferred not to be, but it was inevitable given how often he was there, and he needs must endure being known by the staff and fussed over. He suspected they knew why he was in Lymington as well, but he dared not say anything about it lest he discover he was right.

He left the inn directly after depositing his bag and washing up. His first stop was his florist: there were flowers to be sent to Irene for her to wear to the assembly ball, and then there were flowers to be delivered tomorrow morning, in thanks for the ball. The florist had opinions about those, and Soames yielded to them. Finally, there was a flower to be worn in his buttonhole. These necessities settled, he made his way down the high street and off to the Lomax home to pay his respects. He could hear Irene playing inside and felt a thrill of anticipation. The maid was still absurdly short; he still had to put his own coat on the hook and set his own hat on the stand. He pretended to be grumpy because it was once his habit, but he found himself feeling sympathy for her underneath it. It wasn’t her fault she was short!

Soames made his own way into the drawing room, opening the door as quietly as he could, hoping to catch Irene playing without interrupting her, and was rewarded. She glanced up at him and met his eye, but did not pause. She was intent on the music before her, playing something a bit sparkling and light that she seemed not to know as well as the things she usually played. He hovered in the doorway, watching her. He’d stood in this spot all those years ago, when he’d seen her for the first time, like this, watching her play, her face concentrating on what she was doing, her shoulders and head in motion as she played. Now as then, he was caught by her, by the look on her face of pure absorption, of joy in what she was doing. Was that what had drawn him in, in that first moment? Was that why he’d fallen in love at first sight with her?

Millie the maid came in quietly with a glass of sherry on a tray. He took it and gave her a smile that discomfited her, but he had already forgotten her and turned back to Irene. He tasted his sherry; it was the same as it had been earlier in the week. He drank it only to calm his nerves. The music was so cheerful, though, that being nervous seemed absurd. It was making him want to smile all by itself, and he didn’t know what to make of that.

The music changed, and went into a slower, quieter bit that was still obviously the same piece. Soames finished his sherry and set his glass down. He reached into his coat pocket and took out his gift, then paced noiselessly closer, until he could rest a hand on the closed piano lid and gaze down at her. She was wearing a gown he’d seen before; he knew all of her gowns. She did not have many. The colour of this one suited her; the colours always suited her. She had an eye, and he appreciated that. Why was she so beautiful? She simply was, perhaps. She was what she was.

Soames held himself self-contained, with his left hand behind his back, watching her play.

The music changed again, and returned to something faster and cheerful again. He thought it was perhaps a little bit showy. Irene’s expression shifted and she looked more concentrated than she had been before, even though the music was still light. Was it because it was faster? There were so many things going on, and her fingers were moving uncommonly quickly at some moments; Soames had no idea how she knew how to read the music on the page and turn it into finger movements so seemingly easily. It was possibly like painters knowing how to mix paint, or he himself knowing where in the law and in precedent to look for the reasoning he needed for a brief. It was what she did, her training, her métier as the Law was his. Her expertise.

She concluded, and held her right hand up, flexing the fingers gently. She looked up at him and raised an eyebrow. He said, “What was that? I haven’t heard you play it before.”

“That was a Mozart sonata, number 13. He’s not my usual, but I felt today called for Mozart.”

“I enjoyed it.” And to his surprise he had: she had not been solemn while playing it, but instead bright and clear-eyed.

He looked at Irene and found her gazing at him, and then he found himself caught in that little smile again. It was ridiculous and wonderful! He looked down, because if he kept looking into her eyes he didn’t know what would happen to him.

“What makes a day a Mozart day?” he asked. He himself had no earthly idea. The question was the right one, however, for her face lit with delight.

“Ah! It must be a light and airy sort of day. There is nothing romantic or dramatic about Mozart. He is cheerful and sparkling, full of joy. He is charming, but not passionate. Well, he can be passionate, but that piece is not.”

“Champagne to Beethoven’s claret?”

“Mmm, that’s good. I felt today wanted a lightness and sparkle, and Mozart is perfect for that. Unfortunately, I haven’t very much of his music here. I relied on the Conservatoire’s copies.”

“Oh!” he said. That was something to note, and he indeed noted it. But— “Speaking of music. I happened on this and thought it might interest you.” He took his left hand out from behind his back and presented what he’d been concealing from her: a slim sheaf of sheet music rolled up and tied with a ribbon.

She took it from him cautiously, puzzled, and untied the ribbon. If he thought the question about Mozart had made her happy, it was nothing to her reaction to this. The ribbon fluttered to the floor as she hastily shuffled through the sheets.

“Brahms? The Brahms rhapsodies? Soames, I have not been able to thank you for the Grieg, and here you are giving me Brahms? Where did you—”

Soames shrugged, unwilling to answer, but she was paying him no mind: the music was already before her on the piano. The fellow at Augener’s had told him the Grieg was delightful, sure to please the young lady, but perhaps she would seek more challenging work next. Soames had accepted the guidance, and observed the comment about challenge, and asked the man for a second gift to follow up the Grieg. And now he revelled in the rewards of his forethought: bringing her the Brahms had transported her to joy he had not seen her express in his presence before—or ever, that he could remember.

Irene was reading through the music, apparently completely engaged by whatever she was seeing, reacting to something he hadn’t the least idea how to read. It was so much Greek to him, but to her a language she spoke fluently. He wasn’t sure what was involved in learning a new piece of music—it had always seemed like a great deal of work to his cousins—but for Irene it was apparently no more than setting it before herself on the piano and beginning to play it. She began working her way through the first piece: it was strange to him, baffling. It felt prickly somehow, but it gave Irene some pleasure he found satisfying to see on her face. She played; he watched her play. This was enough for him. He had been given sound advice, it seemed. He would remember this, and find that fellow again at Augener’s to learn what else he suggested. Further, he would write in his little notebook, next to the other lists of things she played, that she had little Mozart.

He had been an odd young man. He supposed he was an odd man still. There was no helping it: he was who he was.

He leaned closer over the piano, arms resting upon the lid, and Irene continued playing. Apparently the Brahms was not easily played. He had not seen her learn anything difficult before, and this was just difficult enough to be the challenge the fellow had promised. Her face was quite serious, and she played some things several times in a row, as far as his ear could discern. She looked up at him and smiled. “Brahms is so intense and passionate,” she said, “and I shall need to spend more time with it to do your gift justice.” She paused. “Soames, may I ask a favour of you? Would you turn pages for me? I am concentrating on the piece, and it helps not to have to worry about that.”

“Of course! But how will I know?”

“I’ll tell you. You will want to bring that little bench nearer, I think.”

Soames did so, and found himself seated quite close to her, close enough to smell her honey and roses and feel himself affected by it as he always had been. She resumed playing the Brahms, and he watched her, this time from a position at her side, and tried to understand what she was about. He didn’t understand the music at all, but he could see Irene was completely focused on it and that this was what she wanted to be doing with her afternoon. She played it once through, twice, and he was beginning to understand when to turn the pages just from listening, not that it made any sense to him.

Irene was playing the piece more smoothly now, and he could hear that there was emotion starting to make itself known. He could hear that there was emotion, yes, but it was more difficult to make out what it was about than most of what she’d played. He’d known what that Mozart had been about the instant he’d heard it, even though he’d known nothing about what the piece was supposed to be. Cheerful and sparkling, yes, he could believe that. This? What was a rhapsody? What was he supposed to feel? Passion about what?

He was sitting near her, and no one else was in the room, and she smiled at him when she finished the piece, so he had no complaints at all. It was his usual experience of concert-going with her.

At last Irene stopped playing and stretched her arms with fingers interlaced. “That was quite a long practice session,” she said to him. “Thank you for indulging me, Soames.”

“It was a pleasure.”

“What do you feel about the Brahms?”

“I don’t know what I think,” he said.

She laughed at him, but he did not feel insulted, for she laid a hand on his coat sleeve briefly and said, “Clara Schumann loved Brahms immediately, and celebrated his genius as a composer, but it took years for anyone else to understand him. I don’t think this piece is easy to understand.”

“I can’t make head or tail of it.”

He opened his mouth to say more, but at that moment the drawing room door opened. He stepped back from the piano hastily. But it was only Mrs Lomax, exclaiming with pleasure to see him. Soames flushed but was able to keep his face otherwise under control, and Irene herself seemed not even to notice. She merely began gathering up the music on the piano before her. It was absurd, what all this emotion was doing to him! He was behaving as if he were a stripling instead of the man he was, a man who’d lived a long life. He was behaving as if, as if—as if he were his younger self, Soames at twenty-five, in love and bewildered by it.

Soames did his best to feign pleasure to Mrs Lomax in return, and was as cordial as his years had taught him how to be. It was still difficult for him. He did not have the gift of it: he did not like her; he did not feel close to her; he had no idea what to say that was honest and straightforward. Discussion about the weather only took one so far.

It was tea-time, apparently: they’d been absorbed with the Brahms for hours and he hadn’t realised it. The maid Millie came in with a tray full of china and tea-things, and then there was the business with tea-making to occupy them. Soames was saved from having to make more conversation for a while as they drank their tea. Irene could instead tell her step-mother how kind Soames was to have brought her more music, and such wonderful music from the continent that she had been most eager to play! Mrs Lomax was most impressed by his thoughtful gift, and quite pleased that Irene had reacted positively to it; she seemed to have expected the opposite.

Soames drank tea and wondered what drama had gone on in the past with Irene and suitors, and wondered further why he had never asked her about this. Had she any stories to tell? Unpleasant ones, perhaps?

Irene abandoned the tea conversation, returned to the piano, and began assaying the second rhapsody.

Mrs Lomax appeared to care nothing at all for music, even less than Soames himself ever had, because she did not hesitate to speak to him while Irene was playing. He was faintly offended by this, but it did give him a moment to confess that he had not yet found the right opportunity to propose, but that he surely would that day or on the morrow. She nodded to him and touched his arm in a conspiratorial gesture. He disliked whatever scent it was she wore. It was a lady’s scent, but he disliked it. It was sharp and too strong for his nose, and it did not mix well with honeyed roses.

Millie appeared to take the tea things away. Soames was again hovering by the piano watching Irene play. He barely noticed Mrs Lomax also leaving the room.

Mrs Lomax re-entered the room some time later, he knew not how long after. She swept over to him and said, somewhat chiding, “You will of course dine with us, Mr Forsyte, and then I will accompany you both to the assembly hall. You will want to go and change now, I think.”

“Thank you,” Soames said. “I should very much enjoy dining with you all.” The hint was clear: he was to depart and come back at dinner-time. He was abashed to have needed the hint, because he ought to have been more aware of the time. But he’d so been enjoying Irene’s company! Then he realised that he’d disappointed Mrs Lomax by not having proposed, and felt reproved. He ought to have. It was absurd that he’d completely failed to remember that he ought to have. He’d been so intent on watching her play that he’d lost sight of everything else.

That was quite strange.

VI. Soames and Irene waltz

Dinner had been a matter of endurance: could he endure the Lomaxes’ conversation with each other? Could he endure the ineptitude of the unfortunate Millie, who was surely doing her inadequate best without help? Could he endure his distance from Irene across the table, whom he could not touch? The answer was yes, because he had no choice but to endure it. At least he’d been able to bring her in to dinner.

Soames attempted to find humour in what was going on around him, and mostly succeeded. Mostly. He was able to compliment the roast, which was done just so, the cook’s speciality, and make Mrs Lomax happy. For some things, there was no help. Lomax’s port was only barely drinkable, but Soames knew better than to show this. He drank it with good grace and pretended amusement at Lomax’s man-of-the-world jokes. His comment about the beauty of his step-daughter and Soames’s motives for hanging about put Soames’s back up, but there was no profit in being angry about it; Soames did have a motive, and he played along with a lift of his glass.

It was all a deep strain on his ability to perform his role at a social occasion. He knew the rules, knew what he was to do, but had always found it so much more difficult than the men around him seemed to. He had to stay on his guard at all times, to always think about what he had to say and how he ought to react. He preferred to be silent but he could not when there were only four people at the table. At least Lomax had no interest in the ball; Mrs Lomax was going to chaperone them with every intention of having a long gossip with the other town matrons.

After the trial of dinner ended, the trio walked together from the Lomaxes’ house up towards the assembly hall, where the balls took place, hard by the Angel Inn. It was a walk just long enough to settle the digestion and establish a clear separation in Soames’s mind between dinner and the ball: before one was in that house, enduring; after one would be under public scrutiny in the assembly hall. It was a lovely clear spring evening: the stars were visible in a sky behind scudding clouds. Soames breathed in fresh sea air and felt himself ease into relaxation. He was ready for what lay ahead: dancing, and more dancing, with Irene as often as she would allow him. He resolved to ask her for the supper-dance if she would have him.

And indeed, once they were inside, coats and hats off, he asked, and she graciously assented. Soames wrote his name on Irene’s dance card three times in total. He wanted to claim more dances than that, but even as many as three was on the edge of bad form. Besotted as he was, being seen to practise bad form was beyond him. He would have to endure watching her dance with other men, and would most certainly distract himself by dancing with other girls. Indeed, the Master of Ceremonies pounced upon him immediately—that young gentleman from London who’d been calling on Professor Heron’s orphaned daughter. He introduced Soames to a succession of single young ladies who wanted partners for dances, and to whom Soames was immediately committed. He was, of course, delighted to be so introduced, and said so to each of his prospective partners with a gallant fixed smile. When each had retired, he made a quick note on his programme of their dress colour next to the dance, so that he might have some hope of finding them again, for he had forgotten their names immediately. Why did only women get dance cards? It was unfair. The Master of Ceremonies seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of young ladies for him, and he was committed to every dance of the evening in short order.

A full evening of dancing lay ahead. Thank heavens for the body of youth!

The couples were assembling on the dance floor, and he made his way to Irene as rapidly as he could, for the first dance was theirs together. It was a waltz, and he remembered what waltzing with her felt like. Would he remember how well enough? Irene told him as they took their position together that she had not danced in some time, and she was so very much looking forward to it. He had better remember.

To his immense relief, his feet and his hands remembered what to do. He touched her waist, oh so gently, took her hand, and they were in motion. The repeated drilling in his childhood had remained with him even now, and the youthful spring in his limbs made it joy to move with Irene. He looked down into her eyes, and oh, she was smiling up at him as she never had. No averted glances from the side, no shrinking away, no sense that she would rather be anywhere else than with him, in his arms, waltzing. She danced well, much better than he, but it didn’t matter to him so long as he could drown in her eyes and her scent and in the warmth of her so close to him. His hand was on her waist, and they were spinning gracefully. He must be as worthy of her dancing as he could be. Good God, when had he last waltzed? It had been with her, and it had been before their marriage, as far as he could remember, and it must have made him as drunk on her scent and dizzy from her touch then as now.

It was good to be young, and to find himself unchallenged by even a faster waltz, and to find his blood quickened only a little by the exercise. Good to stand face to face with her afterwards, tingling all over. Did she feel this way too? They stood for a long moment, looking at each other, and then the moment was over, and the couples were leaving the floor. Soames escorted Irene back over to Mrs Lomax and to her seat. Would she like refreshment? She would. He left her with a pang. When he returned with glasses of lemonade for the three of them, he found a handsome chestnut-haired youth with an extravagant moustache talking to her. The youth was, it seemed, written down for the next. Soames’s chest twinged as he watched, but she was doing no more than good behaviour required, and he must do the same.

Irene smiled when she saw him, a man obviously returning from an errand bearing refreshments for her, and the youth retreated from the battlefield of hearts. Soames sat with Irene and tasted his lemonade; it was cloyingly sweet and not quite drinkable. He made a face and saw her laughing at him for it.

Talk was impossible seated at that table, with the din of conversation around them. He remembered all the rituals of an assembly dance but from a distance. The War had changed so much. Young people after the War had had no more time for the rules of signing dance cards and fetching lemonade. He’d despised assembly dances when he’d been young, and had put up with them only for the pleasure of being with Irene. Private balls were a different matter; one was not in a crowd, and the wine was better. But now, given this second chance at youth, he could let himself enjoy what he hadn’t known the Nation would lose, what he hadn’t thought mattered. Now he could let himself simply dance. And at least they could sit together in the midst of all this, quietly happy, and he need not find words when he was in this state. He could smile at Irene and see her smile back at him, and enjoy it without complication.

The chestnut moustache reappeared. Soames rose with Irene and handed her off with good grace, and went to find his next partner: cadmium yellow dress, pink flowers. She was a good-looking-enough slender thing with dark hair. She was light on her feet and had few words to say to him, so he enjoyed the dance, though he was aware of Irene on the dance floor with them, sometimes passing nearby, sometimes looking towards him. He caught her eye once and his face burned.

He remained gracious with his partner, whose name he had already forgotten, handing her off to her chaperone and what appeared to be an alarming number of sisters gazing at him expectantly. The next young lady was in green something like viridian, and the dance was a lancers, and conversation was expected of him. He did his best, made somewhat easier when the young lady turned out to want descriptions of some of London’s landmarks. Fortunately he could provide accurate, if somewhat terse, descriptions of what they looked like, particularly at sunrise when the light caught them just so. She seemed slightly surprised by his choice of the time of day, but she had asked for his opinion, and he’d once seen light after a summer sunrise that he had dreamed over for years afterwards.

The next young lady was in cornflower blue with yet more flowers on it, according to his colour list. He found himself discomfited by how many of them were in similar blues and was in serious fear that he would stand someone up. He was rescued by the Master of Ceremonies, who pointed out precisely that pattern waiting anxiously at the side of the dance floor. He was at least making a good account of himself, however much he might be resenting that this was another waltz and he was not dancing it with Irene.

He stood in a dark corner after that dance ended, and drank watered-down lemonade: it was hot in the room, with the lamps and not enough open windows for that many people. His buttonhole had already begun to wilt. He watched Irene with her step-mother while he drank: she was also drinking water.

Soames reflected with more than a little satisfaction that Irene was by far the most beautiful woman in sight. She was not as beautiful as she would yet become—her face still had an air of girlishness, and her figure was not as full as he remembered it. Her gown was the gown of a girl who had only one for formal occasions, and it was not the finest fashion to be seen. Soames cared nothing for that; he was aware only that she was the Irene he had fallen in love with, the girl who’d so earnestly told him the day he met her that he was quite wrong to say she should give up her ambition simply because she could not be Clara Schumann. This had touched something in him. And Irene as ever had challenged him and said things to him he’d never heard or thought before. However little he might have understood them at the time, they had stayed with him, and some of them he’d been able to make more of as time passed. She’d been unique in his life, unknown to him though he’d sought desperately to know her, burning a trail across his life like a firework and vanishing as completely. And here she was sitting in a ball gown, happy, carefree. This woman had lost her father, which happened to everyone in the end, but heartbreak and the loss of a love and the years of loneliness had not scarred her heart. He hadn’t scarred her heart. He hadn’t spoken harsh words to her. He hadn’t ruined a man to strike at her.

How had he ever hurt this woman? How had it become so bad between them that she hated him and he lashed back?

He saw her look at her dance card, then smile, and look around the room in search of him. He was summoned. Soames set his glass down and hastily made his way out of his corner to appear at her side. “I have the honour of the next, I believe,” he said.

“You believe?” she said.

“Yes. The pale gold gown follows the cornflower blue gown on my list. I believe that is you.”

“I do seem to be wearing a pale gold gown.”

“I can see no other pale gold gowns in the room.”

“I am obliged to dance with you, then,” Irene said, and stood.

He offered her his hand, and she took it, and he tried not to show how much this delighted him.

It was a polka, a trifle vigorous, and though his hand was pleasantly on her waist and hers on his shoulder, there was no opportunity to look into her eyes. Afterwards he was even warmer. So much dancing! It was past the half-way mark, and at least he would have the supper-dance. That was something to look forward to, if he did not burn up beforehand.

A breeze came over his face, from Irene’s moving fan. “It is warm in this hall,” she said. She was watching him curiously over the fan, dark eyes, slightly flushed face, gold hair with white and yellow flowers in it, a drop of moisture on her temple. He watched it bead and slide down her cheek. His head swam, and not from the heat: his blood was running hot with something else. He closed his eyes for a moment and breathed. Steady, steady. He opened his eyes again and this time watched the fan, not her face. He found his voice.

“Too many people in too small a space, I think.”

“At least there is enough room to dance!”

“I am reminded that it is time for me to find my next partner.”

“What colour is her gown?” she asked, and there was a jest in her eyes.

“Blue again, with figuring. It’s quite a lovely transparent blue, and the figuring is almost watery green. It reminds me of the sea in a Boudin painting I saw once. I take my leave of you both.” He made a tiny bow to Irene and Mrs Lomax and was off, on light feet. Youth was a pleasure to have once again, even if it did come with moments of his body reminding him that youth had its passions. He could manage those moments now. In the main.

When the supper dance came, Soames had been away from Irene for far longer than he liked, but he was satisfied that he had done what was required of him, and danced with five girls who had wanted partners, and made at least one of them happy with a careful compliment of her skill. Now he could enjoy his reward, the dance that mattered. Now was the dance before supper, before the quiet and intimate time they could spend talking together, with their gloves off, alone in the throng.

And this dance would be a waltz, the most intimate of dances. They would be as close as they could possibly be in public, touching as intimately as they were allowed to touch in public. He would look into her eyes and try to guess what she felt for him from what he saw there. What would he see?

Soames walked over to Irene, and offered her his arm. He could not smile, despite his inner joy: it was all too overwhelming. Irene took his arm and they walked from the side room to the ballroom floor slowly, amid the crowd of couples doing the same. They found a clear place on the dance floor. They stood looking at each other, unmoving, both solemn. The flowers in her hair had wilted; he could see perspiration on her face, on her temples, wetting her hair. He knew his own buttonhole had browned and wilted, that his own collar had softened, that sweat streaked his own face. She was beautiful, so very beautiful to him. He wanted nothing more than to tell her this, but he could not.

The music began. He offered her his hand palm up. She accepted and they began. This waltz was slower than the first, and he dared to call it pretty. He had no words for what it felt like. Flower petals? Rose petals, soft and rippling and perfect under his hand. He was drawing her down the ballroom floor, gliding in a musical rapture that even he could understand, he endlessly moving forward, she endlessly turning back, and yet moving as one. They were touching ever so lightly, and yet every tiny contact was warm and alive. He could feel her breathing under his fingers, light though his touch on her waist was.

His courtship of her commenced now, he thought, now in this dance. Everything that had come before was cowardice, not caution. He would make it unmistakable to her from this moment on, so that when he at last spoke those three words to her she would already know. If she refused him after this moment he would believe it.

An eternity of gliding with her, holding her gaze, unaware of anything else around them. The music and her. Never may it end.

It was an eternity of unity, and yet it ended. They were standing again, looking into each other’s faces while they breathed: a pause in which Soames heard nothing and saw nothing but her. He felt as if he were only partly present in the room. The rest of him was somewhere hovering far above them out of his body altogether. And then it collapsed around them into the announcement of supper: whatever had transported him was fading and he was easing down into reality. He could hear murmuring, louder talking, some laughter; feel sweat trickling along his ribs. She was close enough to him that he knew her scent for the first time in the evening: roses and honey.

The couples around them were moving away, off the dance floor. Irene touched his gloved hand and he found his feet were on solid ground again. He offered her his arm: she took it. Her hand inside his elbow was heat that he could feel all the way through his coat. His entire soul was hers now. Whatever happened next, she owned him completely.

He led her gently into the throng of couples making their way slowly to the supper-room. They walked in silence, not quite the last among the crowd, but near it. He said, with a voice that was almost not behaving itself, “What was that?”

“Strauss, Roses from the South,” she said, quietly. “I have the sheet music, but I’ve not heard it danced to.”

“I liked that.” He felt her looking at him.

“That is twice today you’ve told me you’ve enjoyed a piece of music, Soames. First the Mozart sonata, and now this waltz. I am astonished.”

“Can a man spend time with you and not learn?”

“I had doubted it, but now I am proven wrong. You have been listening.”

She had been right to doubt. He’d never expressed any appreciation of the music itself. And in truth, it had always been difficult for him. He had missed it when she stopped playing in his presence, but he’d never been able to explain why to himself. Her face was so different, so giving when she was playing. She was somewhere else as he was when he looked at a painting that meant something to him, did something with light and colour that caught him. This time—he had learned something, only a shred of something, but enough to catch his interest.

They made their way into the supper room, behind the last of the crowd, and found seats near the wall, where a breath of sea air seeped through old windows. Irene sat, and adjusted the candlestick lighting their table. Soames asked if she preferred lemonade or claret cup, and was unsurprised to be told the claret. The lemonade had been intolerable. He came back with claret and a plate of light things that he knew she would prefer at a moment like this, in a stuffy room after exercise. There were no ices, but there was cold chicken, bread and butter, and fruit. He served her and asked if she wanted anything else. She did not. He returned with his own plate, and at last sat beside her. He tasted his own claret cup: cold, thank goodness.

They sat in their own pool of candlelight, in a room full of couples in their own warm splashes of light, murmuring together. His gloves were off. Her gloves were unbuttoned and her hands bare. He’d seen them bare so many times—had watched her playing piano that afternoon—but here, now, it was another thing. She was vulnerable before him, and so was he. They were as alone as they would be all evening, in this crowd, with couples beside them talking but ignoring them, alone in their own pocket of quiet conversation in the din, with no one paying them the least mind. He could say what he wished to her now, and she to him.

And what would he say? What could he say? There was so much he wanted to say, and so much he did not dare. Well, he might as well make the obvious opening.

He asked, “Did you like the Grieg lyric pieces?” And again, it was a question that caught her attention: he’d done the right thing.

“I spent yesterday playing through all eight pieces, several times over. They’re not technically difficult, but they are so charming and varied. Have you heard them performed?”

Soames shook his head. “I should like to hear you play them. Tell me about them?”

“Oh, they were fun, easy enough that I might use them to teach pupils. Grieg is so light and delightful at times, then serious. I knew about him, but I’d never explored his works. He isn’t taught where I studied—he’s quite young, I think. How did you find him?”

“I asked.”

“Whoever you asked has excellent taste. You should ask this person for more names that I might look for.”

“I shall do so, and if I happen on something I shall mention it.” He would do more; he would bring her more music. This was the way to her heart: not jewellery, not gowns, not country houses. He would give her this instead. Soames knew that he would have to restrain himself even with this. He wanted to give her everything. The yearning was made worse in him by what she said next.

“I wish I could visit London and haunt the music publishers for new work.” She sighed. “I loved Paris, but I have not seen much of London yet.”

“It has far more for someone like you than Lymington does.” Someone like her! Someone who deserved everything London had. He ate bread and butter and tried not to think about what she deserved, which was everything he could give her.

“So you say! Someday I shall see it.”

“I wish I could take you to concerts there. But—”

“My step-father lives here in Lymington, and I am told he has business in Bradford that will take us there.”

“Bradford?” said Soames. “When will you be going there?”

“I am told when the lease on the house in Lymington is up, early next year.” Irene did not seem happy about this, and Soames found it understandable. Yorkshire was even further away from where Irene wished to be

He said, “I would come to visit you in Bradford, but I would rather—I would rather you were in London.”

“Thank you. You are a rock. It can be lonely, sometimes, and it has been more so since losing Papa.”

Soames understood that. “When did your father die?”

“Three years ago.”

“You miss him.”

“Yes.”

“I am sorry you have been lonely.”

“I have not been so lonely recently.”

Soames was silent. Did she mean him? She had to mean him, that he cared for her and she knew it. “Perhaps,” he said, cautiously, “we might keep each other company.”

“Perhaps we might.”

“It would give me great happiness.”

“I have very much appreciated the new Soames,” Irene said to him softly. “He’s someone I’ve enjoyed talking with. He’s not closed away from everyone the way the old Soames was.”

“Oh,” Soames said. Closed away? It was bad form to show emotion in public, yes, but surely he’d shown himself to Irene? Or not. He’d always been so silent when she’d most moved him. Perhaps it had never shown even on his face. Had that been his mistake?

He said, “I don’t wish to be closed away. At least not from you.”

“You must talk more of yourself to me. I have told you about myself, and now it is your turn. You have hours of talking about yourself to do to catch up with me.”

“You ask a great deal,” he said. “I can’t possibly talk that much. And certainly not here.”

“Perhaps you might tell me more of your paintings, and what you look for and what you see. Have you ever painted?”

“I have not. A tutor once tried to teach me draughtsmanship, but it did not go well. If I have any talent at all, it is for the Law. For finding a path from where my client is to where he wishes to be. It’s a particular sort of skill, I think.”

“You are a clever lawyer despite what you say.”

“Not clever so much as careful, I think. And methodical. There is satisfaction in knowing that I’ve done things properly, and managed a matter as well as it could possibly be managed. If I have to be clever to do it, well, I shall be clever.”

“You like to be reliable and relied upon?”

The question surprised him. He hadn’t thought of that as something he enjoyed; merely something one did. “I suppose I do. I do enjoy being useful for the people around me.”

“That is an admirable thing to enjoy,” Irene murmured, and drank. Her glass was empty, and Soames immediately offered to fetch her more, which she declined. One glass was enough, she said, which was just as well, because the supper hour was over. There was more dancing yet: three more dances, with three more girls of whom he noticed nothing, and Sir Roger de Coverley to end it all. Quaint, but he remembered it, and it was his last chance to touch her as they changed places around each other. It was a pleasure he had not remembered, dancing like this, hooking arms and spinning and returning and bowing: a thing of a past that was more fragile than the people around him knew, more precious. He let himself enjoy it more than he ever would have before, holding this awareness close and secret.

It was bad form to dance with one’s wife. He’d thought about that more than once in his previous life, and never dared violate the prohibition to do what he had secretly wanted to do all along. Would he do so if he could this time? Perhaps he would ask her if she wished for it, and if she did, he would dance with her. If she accepted him.

And then the ball was over. People were clustering around the door. Soames fetched Irene’s cloak and wrapped it around her shoulders—a first time for him performing this service: pausing a moment behind her, gazing down at the nape of her neck, at the pale down along it, at the knot of golden hair above it, the flowers he’d sent her that morning bound into the coils, white sparks in the gold. Why was she so beautiful? he thought again, and again with no answer other than that she simply was.

He accompanied Irene and her step-mother out into the night air, mercifully cool and breezy. People were leaving, some via the handful of cabs, most on foot.

“I shall call tomorrow, if I may,” he said, to them both, and received a significant look from Irene’s step-mother. He had yet to propose, and she was waiting for him to do so. In his own time, in his own time. But he thought tomorrow would have to be the day: he could put it off no longer. Tomorrow. He’d propose tomorrow. There was a strange mix of terror and delight in his heart.

Soames gave a coin to a boy, who scurried off to secure a cab for them. Soames handed Irene and her step-mother into it and watched it clop away from the hall. He would know his fate tomorrow. What would Nemesis do with him? He could not guess.

VII. A night alone

Soames walked not towards the inn but away at first, hoping to clear his head and cool his body. He was absurdly happy as he had rarely felt in his life, and sick to his stomach with fear. He’d spent his evening dancing with her! She’d smiled at him, and looked into his eyes as deeply as he’d looked into hers. They’d waltzed. They’d talked. They had seemed to understand each other, to be in sympathy with each other. They’d talked of personal things, and promised to talk further.

He would ask her to marry him tomorrow. He knew what he would do if she refused. What was he to do if she accepted?

It was one in the morning, and Lymington grew quieter the further he walked from the assembly hall. When he reached the front he turned round and walked back up, cooled and calmed. When he reached the inn, he was greeted by a porter who knew him from many previous visits, and treated him with the deference of a frequent and easily-pleased guest. On impulse, he asked that they send brandy up to him. This was not a common request he made, but there were times when he sat and imbibed something slowly, and thought over his evening with Irene. He wanted to do so now. If he’d had cigars, he might have smoked one, simply for the mood it would put him in; at least his older self would have.

Soames made his way up to his room, his usual on the southwest corner, with a view of the sea. He turned down the gas lamp to a tolerable level and lit the candle. Gas! He’d had an electric plant at Mapledurham for three decades and more. Here he was with gas and candles and horses in the street, a chamberpot under the bed. He opened his window to the night air: cool, damp, with the scent of the ocean. The evening was hushed around him, save for the sound of waves, but in his head it was cacophony. Irene might accept him. She might want him. Tomorrow at this time, he might find himself engaged to be married to her again, in this his inexplicable second life.

He washed his face in the washstand and looked at himself in the glass. He looked as he felt: strained, with a line between his brows, and a hollow in his cheeks. The last few days had been an uncommon trial for him, and his nerves were stretched near the breaking point.

The maid brought him his brandy and closed the door quietly behind herself. Soames sighed with relief. The trials of the evening were over. Coat, tie, collar, cuffs, and boots off. Braces pushed off his shoulders, and the top button of his trousers opened: he was out of his evening dress and no longer armoured against the world.

Soames sprawled into the armchair beside the candle and cupped the brandy glass in his hand. He was alone and could think now. He tasted the brandy; it was good, but his mind was not on it. It was on that waltz.

That waltz! He would give anything to be back in those eternal minutes again. Did she feel the same? He’d been somewhere completely strange during it, having feelings he’d never had before in his life. He’d loved her before. He’d waltzed with her before. But never before had she looked at him like that while in his arms. What would happen once he knew what she decided? If he got it right, would it all end? Would he go to his eternal rest? Or would he—would he be able to taste what his life ought to have been if he’d been worthy the first time? He wished, he longed, he might almost go to his knees and pray for it.

If she loved him, what might it be like? Might she say the words? Or take his hand? Stroke his hair, perhaps. Spend a moment adjusting his tie and collar even if they did not need it. Call him over to hook her gown. Touch a hand against his cheek. Kiss him of her own accord. Allow him to pin a brooch to her gown over her breast, and then kiss the bare skin above it, a promise of how he might kiss her later. Allow him to unhook her gown, to remove the pins from her hair. Oh, he could imagine so much, so many tiny things he’d longed for, seen other wives give their husbands but never been given by her.

Why never him?

He knew his marriages had not been happy, not in the way people usually meant. His marriage to Annette had not been unhappy either, but neither of them had loved the other. They had been used to each other, and Soames had enjoyed Annette’s bed and her matter-of-fact attention there if not her conversation. With Irene, though, with Irene it had been all heat and burned hearts and two lives left in ashes. He had burned for Irene. He’d hurt her, though he hadn’t set out to do so, hadn’t meant to. It had just been so… difficult. Things had never gone the way he’d intended.

Where had he gone wrong? He’d said the wrong things when proposing to her that first time, yes, but he’d had a steady faith he could win her love right up until the moment she’d told him she loathed the sight of him. He winced, remembering it, remembering how he’d sat on the stairs in the dark outside her locked door. He’d tried to imagine other women, while sitting there and when he’d been most lonely over the years after. He’d never had much interest in that. Yes, it felt good; yes, it was better to have someone to embrace than not to have anyone. But he’d only wanted her since the moment he’d met her. When he’d sat on those stairs he’d been unable to imagine finding peace with anyone else, and that locked door told him she would never give him peace again.

He had certainly gone wrong on his wedding night. Even then, he’d known that. After he’d rolled away from Irene and wiped the sweat from his face, she’d cried, and nothing he’d done had comforted her. What had he done wrong? He’d never understood. She’d never told him, though he had tried to ask. He’d tried, though finding the words had been difficult, and coaxing answers from her impossible. She’d never accepted him but grudgingly after that, and only after being begged or pressured or—

He shuddered and had another taste of brandy.

He’d suffered, yes. He’d been so sulkily angry for so long through it, suffering through her rigid care to avoid showing him the least warmth or kindness, lest he mistake it for affection. Why had she made him suffer? He would have done anything for her! He had done everything he could think of for her, and she’d spurned all of it, taken his money, worn the jewellery and the dresses he’d bought for her, and eventually lived in the house he’d built for her, but with another man. The bitterness he’d felt over that! And yet he’d have leapt to her side if she had crooked a finger at him, even at the humiliating end when his cousin had stolen her away. She’d hurt him, over and over.

He had another gulp of the brandy. He was not a man given to strong drink. He’d been drunk perhaps twice in his life. It helped a little tonight, though, made it easier to think about what he was about to do, and decide if he could trust himself not to hurt her this time, even if she loved another.

Had he meant to hurt her?

He’d been angry, yes. He’d sulked, yes. But he had never treated her badly, or stopped her pin money, or beaten her, or deprived her of anything. He’d never used cruel words to her, save on that very last night when Bosinney lay dead in the morgue, when he’d known he had lost it all. He had spoken cruelly then, yes, he admitted it. He’d sulked and fumed, but he’d done nothing, except—

He had done one thing. One unforgivable thing. That had been enough to earn him a lifetime of hatred, and the look he’d seen in his Cousin Jolyon’s eyes, for surely he had known.

No one else knew, he prayed. Only Irene and the man she’d married after him. No one else need ever know.

He hadn’t thought about that deed in decades, not since those horrible few days. She’d thrown it in his face once, and he hadn’t let himself think about it even then.

Why? Why had it happened? It seared his heart too much to think about. Being rejected had hurt, yes. Being told she hated him, yes, even more so. But knowing there was someone else—that had been beyond him.

The jealousy had been unbearable. Even now, from the distance of decades, he remembered how he’d felt when he stepped close to her in that hall and caught the scent of sex on her and known that she had come directly from another man, that she was looking like that, so abandoned and joyous, hair escaping from its pins, because another man had, had—Something in him had broken. He’d been transported outside himself, completely outside himself, and it had been as if he’d been watching himself do those things to her.

Those things. Face it, Forsyte. This is why you’re barred from paradise. This is the wrong.

Soames drank deeply, and faced it. It hadn’t happened: he had done it.

It was his right, he’d told himself. He was allowed this in law, and it was her duty to him, and it was the first step to reconciliation. Reconciliation! He’d had no such thing in mind. Punishment, yes. She was his wife, and she’d denied him, and since she’d given herself to another man, she was a loose woman, and he could have her too. And he’d taken her. Irene had struggled beneath him. She’d begged him to stop. He’d torn her blouse away, and then her underthings, and forced her legs apart and he’d—He’d taken her unwilling. He’d spent himself, yes, and that was when it had passed from him and he’d realised that she was sobbing. He’d known he’d broken her heart. He’d sinned against her, he’d sinned against the woman he loved. He remembered trying to comfort her and how impossible it had been. If she had any shred of regard left for him, it was gone after that. He was a damned fool and a villain.

He’d heard her sobbing through the wall when he had lain awake in his little camp bed that night, his body released but his mind bound up in what he’d done. He’d felt shame even then, and despite the shame a sulky anger that she’d driven him to it, forced him to wrest from her what she owed him, and through all that the guilty awareness that he ought to have kept control of himself. This is what came of losing control.

Another drink.

A man ought not do that to the woman he loved.

A man ought not do that at all.

The next evening, he’d learned from Bilson that she’d left, and he’d found her letter, and the sulking anger had turned into pure shame and grief. He would have given anything to take it back but it was too late. He’d done it. Then it was simple agony when she’d come back after that fellow was dead, and wouldn’t stay. Of course she wouldn’t stay. He might have done that again. He knew he wouldn’t, but he’d never said anything to her that would tell her so, and so she’d fled. His heart had never been the same after.

“She was right to leave me,” he said to the dark room. That was the first time he’d ever formed that thought, and it hurt and yet was the first moment of relief he felt.

What was a man to do when he admitted that he’d done wrong and he could no longer set it right?

Get it right, Forsyte. Try it again, and this time don’t make such a devil of a mess of it. She’d said to him once that she believed in Nemesis. He did now too. Nemesis had visited him and delivered vengeance: broken his daughter’s heart and barred him from eternal rest. He was guilty.

This Irene was innocent of it all. This Irene knew nothing of his guilt, did not know that he did not deserve her. This Irene did not know that he had this in his heart, that he’d done it once to her and therefore might do it again, might sin against the only woman he’d ever loved in a fit of jealous rage.

He hadn’t known he was capable of it until he’d done it. He’d known he was angry, frustrated, thwarted, and unbearably hungry for her, but he had borne it, patient, waiting for her to come round to him. Until he had broken.

Would he? Would he do it again?

He would not swear on his honour before her and be proven false again; his honour was worthless. But—

“I will not hurt her again,” he said. He drained the brandy glass. “I haven’t anything to swear on. But I won’t. I’ll let her go instead.”

The brandy burned in his throat. He hadn’t deserved her kindness earlier. He deserved nothing. The only thing he could do was not repeat the past.

“Irene, I’m sorry,” he said, to the ceiling of his dark room, and drew in a ragged breath. His throat was closed up. “I’ll pass this test. Do whatever you must with me afterwards. If I fail, do what you must. I accept your justice, Nemesis, or whatever you are.”

One last crystalline certainty: Forsyte, it is on your shoulders now.

And upon this, he knew what was on his shoulders. Treat Irene well. Offer her his love and gracefully accept her refusal if she gave it. If she asked to leave, help her to leave. Never take what was not his to take, but only hers to offer. God, but it hurt, thinking about accepting defeat again, but he would do it.

He sat for a time, then, thinking of her, and then of what his life might have been had he never met her. Did he wish for that? Would he have felt this for someone else? He doubted it. He’d never felt even a flicker of this emotion for anyone else, never looked twice at another woman with anything other than the most shallow desire. It had only ever been Irene. And he’d hurt her so badly he had deserved nothing from her.

Did he deserve her love? Did anyone ever deserve anything? Was he unforgivable?

He spun his signet around on his ring finger and rubbed his thumb against the face absently, soothing himself. Was he unforgivable? Unloved. Unlovable. Never once had a woman said it to him.

Loving Fleur had changed it all. His daughter! He had seen her, so tiny and helpless, needing him, and given his heart to her without holding anything back. She was the last thing he could remember from that life before. He remembered now what had happened that night—the night he had been so worried about her and she so desperate from heartbreak. There had been a fire in his gallery, somehow, and he’d tried to save the paintings, and been dragged out by his chauffeur. And Fleur had been reckless, standing below the window. He’d seen something falling and had moved without thinking, pushed her aside—and then pain. Her hand around his. That was how he had died. He had given himself in Fleur’s place. Was that why he had been granted this second chance?

A moment again of that certainty: this was why he deserved anything at all, after what he had done. But even so—He had to prove he understood it.

Did he? He knew he loved her, but it was too much for him. It overwhelmed him.

“She’s my grand passion,” he said, to the empty room. “The least likely man in all London to have one.”

Soames stood up, slightly unsteadily, and carried the empty brandy glass to the bedside table. He shed the rest of his clothing and heaped it untidily over the dressing table. He stepped over to the basin to splash water onto his red-eyed face. This is what came of strong drink taken alone: useless emotion. But he felt better somehow, as if facing it at last had done him good. He could approach Irene tomorrow knowing he’d at least admitted it to himself. He would never tell her a word of this, never let her know what those footsteps on his grave were about. He’d tell her something to the side of it, with enough truth in it that his conscience would be appeased, but not so much that he would seem like a madman to her. Or that she would hate him for being able to even imagine such a thing, such a dreadful evil thing.

Some lover he was, utterly incapable of telling the object of his grand passion the least thing about how he felt. Well. She seemed to have noticed him, this time. She’d felt his regard, and perhaps he’d ignited that spark of response inside her. Perhaps! And now he lived with this terrifying hope.

He didn’t bother pulling on his nightshirt, but fell into bed in only his linens. He was exhausted in mind and body and soul. He couldn’t bear much more of this, he thought. It was good he’d find out one way or another tomorrow. She’d accept him, and his heart would be utterly healed, or she would refuse him, and he would make good on his oath. It would be so wonderful if she accepted him. Perhaps she would let him kiss her. He thought of that, and how he might kiss her that first time, to ensure she got as much pleasure from it as he could manage. There were so many ways he might kiss her!

Soames slid gently into sleep, dreaming of her as he always did.

VIII. Soames hears Grieg

Soames woke in the morning with a clear head and a refreshed body: he’d slept well. He knew his heart. He’d understood what he was setting right, and admitted his sin. He knew what he was going to do today. He didn’t know what would happen, but he would try his fate anyway. He would put it to the touch.

He pulled his shaving kit from his bag and unrolled it beside the washstand. He shaved himself carefully, keeping his hand steady, taking more time than usual to get it right. He looked at his oddly bare upper lip in the mirror and once again wished for his moustache back; he would perhaps ask her if she liked moustaches. If she accepted him, that was. If she did not, he could do what he liked, not that this would be any comfort. He brushed his hair. It was longer than he’d worn it in the Twenties. He’d kept with the fashion at least a little even as an old man. Did he look his best? Better dress and find out.

Clean shirt and cuffs, yesterday’s day trousers, braces buttoned on. The mark of a gentleman was being able to change for dinner in ten minutes; he could still do it even at the age of seventy. Now a young man, with steady hands once again, Soames had no interest in dressing rapidly. He wanted perfection. Tie knotted carefully, then reknotted. Pin, nothing gaudy. Waistcoat on, watchchain threaded. He checked his watch, wound it carefully for twenty seconds. Into the pocket it went. Morning coat on. Handkerchief scented with the little bottle of eau de cologne in his shaving kit, then folded and tucked into his coat pocket. Bric-a-brac distributed carefully into its customary pockets. The flat case with the engagement ring went into the breast pocket of his morning coat. Soames touched it through the coat. Would she wear it? Or would he return it to the jeweller and endure the careful politeness of an assistant who understood he’d been refused?

He looked in the glass and checked his collar, his tie, his hair. Acceptable.

He packed up the heap of clothing he’d made the night before, when he’d been such an emotional mess. Well, he had had to face it; it had been forty years waiting for him, and he’d deserved to take it on the chin. Shaving kit tidied and rolled up again. He’d still had this kit when he’d died—he’d never get used to thinking that—but he’d never got used to safety razors either.

He breakfasted in the inn’s coffee room, reading the Observer fresh from the earliest express train. Nothing of note; no news that would make the stocks he was following for his clients move in any manner beyond what he expected. Politics was what it ever was; he knew already that it would not matter in the least for another thirty years. Society gossip was as tedious as ever; he’d never cared for that, and it did not touch business matters.

He ate eggs and toast with meagre appetite, more with the knowledge that he ought to eat something. No wonder he was so thin! He drank his coffee with more pleasure. He was but filling time with the newspaper, finding himself some occupation until it was a reasonable hour to call upon her. She and her step-mother went to church on Sunday mornings, and he would need to wait for them to return from it. There were some simple errands he could run before he called upon her, though. He didn’t have to sit here uselessly.

He sent his bag on to the station to wait for his train home in the early evening, and settled his bill with the inn. They were delighted as ever to hear that Mr Forsyte had found the accommodation pleasant, and hoped he would return soon. He veered from his usual habit by accidentally expressing his own wish to return soon, and got an effusive response from the proprietor that moved him to swear never to say any such thing again.

Soames then took a walk along the front, resplendent in spring sunshine, tide high along the shore, and tried his best to think about nothing. He did not succeed. He never succeeded at this. His school friend Parkes had once ribbed him about it, saying that it was impossible for the gears in Forsyte’s head to stop turning; they whirred any time he was awake. It was his version of his father’s fretting, perhaps. He thought about love, and his failure ever to find it; he thought about his daughter, and how pure that love had been; about how beautiful the world was sometimes, about wanting to share it with someone he could talk to; how he’d never found anyone to talk to; about how he’d never told anyone but Irene what he thought about when he looked at paintings, and why that was.

When he heard church bells, he turned and made his way back into the centre of town, slowly, so as not to reach her home too quickly. No matter how slowly he walked, he found himself at her door sooner than he was ready to be there. He touched the case with the ring through his coat again, to be sure; it had not vanished. He stood by this ring: it was good work, and would hold its value, not that Irene cared about such things. It would look well on her finger, which mattered more, and it symbolised his commitment to her. He would plight his troth, whatever that was.

He rang.

“Mr Forsyte to see Miss Heron,” he said to the little maid, and smiled at her kindly. “I’ll hang my own coat.”

Soames paced the drawing room while he waited for Irene to come down, back and forth, from piano through the doorway out into the conservatory, and back. It was today. It was now. In minutes he would know. How was he supposed to bear this? Another trip to the conservatory with silent steps, another trip back. He touched his tie, his collar, his hair. His palms were damp. Feet on the staircase: he froze, turned to the door, unable to pretend he was cool and uninterested.

Irene appeared carrying the flowers he’d caused the florist to deliver that morning, with a bemused look on her face. She wasted no words on greeting him, but said, “Come, Soames, help me put these in water so they keep. It would be a pity to let them wilt too quickly.”

Perversely, this calmed him more than anything else she might have said. Soames stood beside her, holding the flowers while she found a vase and water. White roses, paper-white narcissus, lily of the valley, a little more emphatic than usual, but still safely pale in colour.

“Your flowers are usually so modest,” she said to him.

“The florist seemed to have an opinion.”

“Oh!” Irene said. She turned and studied the flowers again as if reconsidering them, then looked at him thoughtfully. He braced himself for questioning, but she said merely, “How shall we occupy ourselves this afternoon?”

“However you wish. I should like to hear the Grieg, if you are in the mood. And I should like a private talk with you.” His pulse raced; he had just given himself away, if she knew to read the signs.

Irene looked him full in the face for a second long moment, then said, “Shall we talk as I play?”

“If we may.”

“I think we may.”

Soames stood in the curve of the piano and leaned against it, where he could watch her face. He had enjoyed turning pages for her yesterday, and wondered if she would ask him to do so again. He would be able to sit near her and enjoy her smile in thanks.

Irene shuffled through the music sheets and set the first pages upon the piano. “Do you know much about these?”

“Eight lyric pieces, on various themes, some of them folk songs.” That was verbatim from what the assistant at Augener’s had said. He didn’t know what this meant for the music.

“Each one is quite different. I shall play one for you, you shall tell me what you think, and then we’ll pause and talk about whatever it is that you wish to talk to me about.”

Soames assented, with some trepidation.

“This one is called Arietta.”

Irene played something that wasn’t as dramatic as what she often played, he could tell that, but why he wasn’t sure. He felt nervous and uncertain. He was not musical! He was not supposed to think about anything when he heard music. But—where did he go? If he tried to imagine himself somewhere? He gazed at her face and tried to relax enough to let himself go where she was going. It seemed to hang at the end, and that was interesting to him. It was definite about whatever it was saying.

Irene raised her brows at him. “What does this make you think about?”

“It’s not dramatic,” he said, cautiously. “But not sparkling either like Mozart. It’s beautiful but it isn’t grasping my sleeve and demanding something from me the way the Brahms did yesterday. Neither claret nor champagne. Hock?”

Irene gave him a slow thoughtful look, and nodded. “Yes, that feels right. A light hock.”

“Delicate.”

“Good,” she said, and that was her praising him as if he were an awkward student. Somehow he didn’t mind. “The second piece is called simply Waltz.” Even Soames could tell this was indeed a waltz: he could count three as well as anyone.

“Grace,” he said to her afterwards. “Your dancing, what it feels like to waltz with you.”

And that was Irene’s cheeks colouring, for once, not his. Had he ever made her blush from a compliment before? No. Hope rose in him, like bubbles in a glass, making his entire body tingle.

She said, “Surprise after surprise. You have been so very mysterious.”

“Hardly.”

“After this week, perhaps not.”

“No?”

“Now I know your secrets. You are not silent and stand-offish, despite how you have seemed these last months, calling on me. You are silent, yes, but only because you are hiding a great fountain of feeling inside.”

She was teasing him, but there was no malice in it. “I am sorry I seemed stand-offish,” he said.

“It was a natural thing to think of a man who never talked of himself, and who could go entire evenings without saying a word. One might have thought you cold. At least, until this week.”

“At no moment did I feel cold towards you. But—yes. I’ve been called that before. A cold fish, an unsociable devil, worse things.” Soames looked down at his hands on the piano lid. “I haven’t got the gift of charm. Or witty conversation.”

“You speak when you have something to say. You don’t make small talk.”

“No. I don’t know how. Other men seem to know, but I don’t.”

“You seemed so different on Monday.”

“I—you smiled at me. And I could not help but smile back.” And there he went again, face burning from the way she was smiling at him. It felt as if he’d spent the week red-faced with emotion. And yet!

“You’re smiling even now.”

“And so I shall so long as you smile at me.” His voice was so rough he could barely get the words out, he was so moved. Yet he’d said it, and he was proud of himself for having managed to do so.

There was silence between them for longer than Soames knew what to do with. Then Irene was shuffling the sheets of music and setting them out again. “The third piece,” she said. “Watchman’s song, after Macbeth.”

“That seems ominous,” Soames murmured.

“I will tell you what I make of this one,” Irene said to him. She played it: it was quite different from the first two, to his ear, much more square somehow, and solemn. When she was done, he tilted his head and looked his question at her.

“This piece is dignity personified,” she said. “It goes into the minor and then comes to a very traditional resolution. This is you, Soames, upright, alone, yet dignified.”

“Dignified?”

“Yes. There is honour in your dignity, and a little loneliness.”

“I… Very well.” He was completely puzzled by this, but unwilling to argue. She felt it was like him; he would accept it, and think about what it meant later. “The fourth?” he asked.

“Ah! A fairy dance!” Irene played it, and he could hear it. He could feel the waltz in it, and feel that it was a little sparkling, like moonlight on snow. It ended with a little flourish that made them both laugh.

“You begin to understand,” Irene said to him. “Music is many things to many people, but it isn’t solemn or serious all of the time. It can be quiet and intimate sometimes, or light.”

“Like champagne bubbles,” he murmured.

“Or heavy like one of your ports.”

“Would that be a symphony sort of thing?”

“Yes, one of the more Romantic ones. We haven’t heard many together, because Bournemouth does not often attract conductors of note, but there are some I would recommend to you.”

“Please,” he said. “And if I can at all find a way to bring you to London—”

Irene looked down at the piano keys. “Perhaps we might convince my step-parents.”

“We—we may find it easier than you think.”

She looked a soft and deep question at him. He nodded, and they held each other’s gaze.

Irene said, slowly, “Fifth piece. A popular melody.” She looked away from him for a long moment, studying the score in front of her, then looked back.

He knew now he was not imagining this. There was something between them, something that he’d never felt between them before. He felt its presence now as acutely as he’d felt its absence before. She was warm to him, not merely politely warm, but very specifically warm to him, to Soames Forsyte, to the man she’d loathed once.

“Irene,” he said, and now it was time to do it, time to put it to the touch. No talk of position, of income, of what he could offer her. Lay his heart bare, and see if she accepted it or spurned it.

Her fingers were on the keys, playing the first phrase of the fifth Grieg piece.

“Irene,” he said again.

She paused, and the notes rang out, undamped. “Yes?”

“I love you.”

A long moment, while the piano faded, then was silent. “I know,” she said.

“You know?”

“On Monday I thought it might be true. When we waltzed together last night, I was certain.”

Soames was silent. It had not been only him; she too had felt that waltz. She too had floated on candlelight and roses and whatever else had covered that dance floor. And she’d known he loved her. She’d said before, that horrible first time, she’d said—she’d said she had no idea. And now?

He stepped closer to her and touched his fingers to the wood of the piano. She hadn’t said she loved him in return. Did that mean she didn’t? But she hadn’t said that either. Surely it wasn’t difficult to resolve. All she had to do was say that she loved him, or not.

“Irene.” He swallowed, and struggled to go on. “I don’t have the words. I never have. I wish I did. But it’s been since the very first moment I saw you.”

“I know.”

He screwed his eyes shut, afraid to look at her now that it came to it. His fate was in her hands. He concentrated on his breathing. In, out. His right thumb sought his signet ring and spun it around without his volition, rubbed against it. He was a wreck before her right now, and felt helpless to regain control of himself.

“Soames.”

He opened his eyes. She was no longer on the piano bench but was standing near him. He could smell that scent of roses and honey that was hers alone. She was looking at him expectantly. Dark eyes under gold hair, a serious, almost fierce face, demanding that he be present and pay attention to her.

“Yes?” he said, and shivered. She was so very close to him.

“I never thought to say this to you. I didn’t think much about the nice young man I met that first day. You seemed kind hearted—that’s what I told my step-mother—but she was so busy trying to make a match between us that I took against you.”

“Oh!”

“I didn’t mind your visits, but I read nothing much into them. You were so quiet! You were kind, yes, but not warm. You gave me no sign. But when you came earlier this week, something was different.”

“You smiled at me,” he said.

“I’ve smiled at you before.”

“This time—I felt struck by lightning again. Like the first moment I saw you. Only this time I was—I was shaken.”

“You were so unlike yourself. Will you tell me what happened to upset you so?”

Don’t lie, Forsyte. Get it right. Tell her what you can. He breathed deliberately, in, out. His signet ring, yes, there it was, under his thumb, one stroke, two, against the engraved face, then back into place.

“I cannot. I had a bad dream, and I faced some things in myself that I would rather not have found. I made some decisions. That is all I can say.” He met her eyes. “Forgive me.”

Irene held his eyes, and seemed to see through him entirely. “If I refuse you now, will you accept it?”

Soames breathed in; now he had to be honest, no matter what. He breathed out again through gritted teeth.

“I won’t want to. I’ll want to tell you that I will persist, and ask again. Your step-mother told me to expect you to refuse me the first time. But—after that dream, any refusal, any at all, I will accept it. I’ll bow my head to you and go away quietly. But on Monday I thought if I didn’t propose just yet, I might enjoy your smile a little longer. And so I’ve been holding off. Now I am ready.”

“Ready?”

“Yes. I have found my courage. But, please—please tell me you won’t refuse me because your step-mother tried to match-make. I beg you.”

“I won’t refuse you because of that.”

He closed his eyes and swallowed. “Refuse me because you don’t love me, or because I am the wrong man for you. I’ll accept it. I’ll accept whatever you say.”

“Soames!”

“Irene.” He looked at her again. She was not angry with him, but she was quite serious and as fierce and demanding as before.

“You seem to assume I will refuse you. Perhaps you will allow me to decide for myself, even to accept you if I wish. But you have not yet asked me.”

He paused to collect himself. He had indeed not asked her yet. And she had not already refused him. That meant she might accept him. He felt like a fool, spelling it out to himself like this. He had to defer to her. He stepped back from the piano and hid his face behind his hand for a moment. Accept her decision. She might accept him. Well, it was time to speak.

He knelt before her, head bowed. This was old-fashioned, had been old-fashioned for decades before this, but he felt the impulse. She deserved it from him, as did the woman he had known before, in that first life.

“Miss Heron. Irene.”

“Yes, Soames?”

“You know I love you. Will you marry me?”

Time was motionless, one crystalline shimmer of suspense. All the possibilities of his life hung before him. He knew at this moment that if she accepted him now, he would never know Fleur. This was the price. In some other life, Fleur was mourning him, Michael Mont was comforting her. In this life, Fleur would never be. Fleur! He’d given his life for hers. She was the other owner of his heart. And he would never know her again, if he and Irene were united now.

“I understand,” he said, to Nemesis. Grief stabbed him, pierced his heart, seared him, and he was suspended for an eternal moment in loss, knowing what was and what would never be. And then it was gone. Time moved again. He was on his knee in a Lymington drawing room before Irene, awaiting her answer.

“Soames.”

“Yes?”

“You have been so thoughtful. No one else has given me what you have. When the lyric pieces arrived in the post I—I was overwhelmed. No one understood enough to do this for me before. I’ve had other suitors, but—”

Soames opened his eyes and looked up at her, surprised.

“None of them have ever thought to do something like that. I’m not sure but I think—I think this week—I think I’m falling in love with you.”

If he hadn’t been on his knees he might have fallen. No one had ever said this to him, never come even this close to telling him he was loved. Not ever. This was beyond him, so far beyond him that all he could do was gaze at her face to see if she were serious. She was. She meant it. She might be falling in love with him. He felt strange, so strange. There was something flooding through him, centred on his heart and radiating out from it, something warm and light, something he’d never felt before. Hope, taking flight.

“I’ll wait. I can wait for you to know,” he said, with that light shining from somewhere inside.

“And if I love you?” she said.

“Then I am yours.”

“You don’t need to wait. I know you are a good and loving man, however silent you are. I will marry you.”

He could say nothing. He bent his head and breathed for a moment, fighting for composure. Then he took her hand in his and kissed it, as he had longed to do so many times. He could touch her now. Something was happening now that he had dreamed of and longed for and wished for—she was reaching out with her free hand to him and caressing him, pushing the hair back from his forehead and stroking his temple. He looked up, and she smoothed his hair back with a gentle touch. He knew his face was saying everything for him now, tears and joy at once.

“I have a ring for you,” he said. “May I give it you?”

“You may.”

He fumbled the case out of his coat pocket. Why were his hands shaking? Surely this ought to be something a man could manage without his nerves being this over-wrought. He got the case open and the ring out. She let him take her left hand in his. He slid the ring onto her finger, and kissed her fingertips once it was in place. He was still shaking. Was that a tremor in her hand as well? It was. He turned her hand over and kissed the palm, the inside of her wrist, then released it reluctantly. She touched his cheek, ever so gently. It felt so good to be touched like that.

“Soames, stand up, please. I can’t bear you kneeling like this.”

He stood. She took his hands, of her own accord, and they stepped close to each other. He bent and kissed her cheek, and dared bring his lips to her ear. “May I kiss you?” he whispered to her.

“You may.”

He kissed her lips gently, carefully, making it as tender as a first kiss ought to be. The temptation to keep going was there, as ever, to kiss with all the passion there was flooding through him, but not so fast, not so much so quickly. Even just this had him breathing fast and unable to look away from her eyes, so dark, gazing at him so intensely. If he kissed her again he would be lost, so he must not. He stepped away ever so slightly and simply held her hands in his.

He was afraid to move, lest he wake up again and find that this was another dream, lest he wake up, and find himself on his deathbed after all, dreaming the desperate dreams of dying men. But no—he was alive, here with Irene, and she was not shrinking away from him. He was alive, and his body was almost unbearably alive as well, from her scent and her fingers entwined with his. All his senses were tingling. His heart was pounding—he’d thought that was poet’s nonsense, but it was not.

“Irene,” he said. “I love you.” Every time he said it, the feeling deepened within him, the joy of having found the words at last. Three words, obvious words, but they were enough if he said them with all his heart. Had it always been that easy?

She said, “I don’t know what’s happening to me just now.”

“It’ll be all right,” he whispered. And it would be. He knew how to do it now. He could love her now.

They stood together for he wasn’t sure how long, quietly, holding hands chastely, silent. It was comforting, peaceful, even, to stand like this with no demands made upon each other or anything at all, merely being together. After some time, he heard movement in the household above them, and shifted. He kissed her forehead.

“We should tell your step-parents.”

“Not just yet, please.”

“I think they shall interrupt us soon whether we want it or not. Your step-mother has nearly lost patience with me.”

“Has she?”

“She expected me to propose to you on Monday.”

“Has she been waiting to find she’s rid of me?”

Soames could hear a note of pain in her voice, and felt anger in himself for her sake. In response he said merely, “I believe so. Her folly is my blessing.” He kissed her forehead again.

“Who knew that you were like this?”

“Not I,” said Soames.

“Very well. I shall face the beast and let them know.”

Before she could move away Soames leaned down and stole a fast chaste kiss. He then released her hands and let her go to the drawing room door. She vanished out into the hall.

“Mama?” he heard her say. Then indistinct voices upstairs, then footsteps, more voices. Soames made his way out to the conservatory so he didn’t have to hear it. Delight and triumph and joy made his heart beat faster, warmed his chest, made him want to fling open a window and shout to anyone who could hear that she cared for him, that he had at last touched her heart and found warmth there. But he did no such thing, merely bounced ever so lightly on his toes and smiled to himself.

And then the drawing room door was open again, and Irene entered. Soames moved immediately to meet her there and take her hand.

“They’re coming down,” she said. She turned to him, reached up, and kissed him—on the corner of his mouth, timidly, but Soames leaned down into it and let her do as she wished. It was the first time she had kissed him of her own accord, ever, and it was perfect. She kissed him a second time, less timidly, and it was equally perfect.

“Oh! Look at you two! Such a marvellous couple!”

Soames started—his heart was in his throat. He hadn’t heard them enter. But there was no dismay on Mrs Lomax’s face, only that triumph he’d seen on her face earlier in the week. Irene, cooler than he, said, “Indeed, Mama, Soames has asked me to marry him and I have agreed.”

“Oh! So delightful! I am so happy for you both!”

“Thank you,” Soames said.

“And has he given you a ring?”

“What? Oh! Yes.”

Mrs Lomax was immediately there, taking Irene’s hand and holding it up to admire the ring. Irene seemed to be surprised by this—Soames had been braced for it, but he’d forgotten to warn her.

“A solitaire! So modern! One has heard that these are what fashionable girls are wearing! Oh, you are a lucky girl, Irene! So very lucky.”

“Most lucky,” she said, but she was looking at him, not at her hand. He realised at that moment that Irene had not even looked at the ring when he’d put it on her finger, and was not certain if he wanted to laugh aloud or weep. He had to give her a ring, of course, and had carefully selected exactly the right ring from exactly the right jeweller. He’d spent hours thinking over it, and considerable time consulting the jeweller, because he’d wanted it to be perfect for her. What had she been paying attention to instead? Him? She never had cared for jewels. Well, he had satisfied the gods of propriety and Forsytes and his own wish to give her pretty things to wear, and that was enough.

Lomax looked at the ring as well, taking Irene’s hand in his, and Soames could see her shrink away from him as he raised her hand up to get a better look at it. Something was odd there.

“That must have cost a pretty penny,” Lomax said.

Soames’s nose lifted despite his wish to remain polite. Irene looked at him, and he cast up his eyes ever so slightly for her to see. Then he stepped towards her to take her hand and rescue her from Lomax’s touch. She clung to him more closely than he’d expected. Something was definitely wrong, and he would certainly not let it go unexamined.

“Congratulations, Forsyte,” Lomax said, and Soames replied with a tight thank-you. He accepted the handshake because one had to. “I have been expecting it for some time!”

“Yes,” Soames said. Lomax seemed to have expected more, but Soames gave him nothing more.

Mrs Lomax was as yet unsatisfied. “Will you be able to stay to dinner tonight, Mr Forsyte—dear Soames?”

“I cannot,” he said. “I have my work in the morning, so I must catch the six o’clock at the latest. My mother shall write to you directly, however. I hope that I shall see you all in London quite soon.”

“Such a pity! Well, at least you will stay through tea.”

“Thank you, I should be delighted.”

Lunch was a light meal, of which Soames ate little. He drank nothing. The side effect of love was, apparently, an inability to contemplate food.

Irene played for him most of the afternoon, starting with the rest of the lyric pieces. She offered to play the Brahms for him again, and he confessed he didn’t understand them at all.

She thought for a moment, then said, “Grieg learned the form of his short pieces from Mendelssohn; would you like to hear where his inspiration came?”

Soames nodded. “Please.”

Irene’s face shone at him. “I love Mendelssohn, and these in particular. I’m going to play some of his Songs Without Words for you. I learned these before I could read music properly. I still play them because I love them so much. I hope you do too.”

Irene apparently did not need to read the music for these, for she took everything away from the piano before she began playing. They were sweet and lovely, these songs. Soames sat on a cushioned stool by the piano watching her play, trying to listen and make sense of it. He was beginning to understand the feeling in it, how things ebbed and flowed and came like rushing waves sometimes, though those weren’t quite the right words. He thought about what colour the sea might be if painted in the same mood as the music, and whether it would be a calm sea or one that capsized boats. Though sometimes that felt too literal. Sometimes it was pure colour, or just a mood he felt.

The Mendelssohn songs weren’t angry seas at all. The one she said was called “Duetto” was most definitely warm colours, reds and oranges, a sea lit by a sunset, not a sunrise. Though again, that was too literal. Duetto. Was the name meaningful? Two people singing? That was what the title meant, and he thought he could hear it.

Irene’s face when she played fascinated him. It wasn’t that it mirrored the music, because it often did not. It was that she was smiling gently to herself as she played. She enjoyed doing it. There was focus there, as well—it made sense to him now that she had not noticed him arrive in the drawing room that day he’d first met her. She was elsewhere. She was thinking about the music. He wondered if he looked like that when he was studying a painting he was interested in.

She would stop between pieces and he would fetch her water or a glass of sherry, or simply ask her to tell him about the piece she’d just played. He committed the names of the pieces to memory; he would write them down in his notebook when he was on the train, in a list with all the others. His younger self had kept the list and never done anything with it, too proud or too angry about her coldness to turn his knowledge into generosity. What a fool he’d been.

The afternoon had been heaven. The entire day had been heaven. He could not imagine anything more wonderful. Though no, there was something not right: tea could have been sweeter without Lomax there, being somewhat coarse and making them both wince. There was most definitely something he would ask Irene about. But she was next to him, not Lomax, and he could distract her with brief touches and looks, and that was enough to keep the mood light. Soames drank his tea with some pleasure.

He left immediately afterwards, as he must do if he wanted to be in good time for the express. Irene saw him to the door, and they had privacy for a proper kiss.

“I’ll write to you tonight,” he said. “My mother will need to write to your step-mother. It’ll all be—it’ll be out of our hands the moment I tell them.”

“I hope they approve of me.”

“They will, once they meet you.”

“I look forward to meeting your sister,” Irene said. “You are so clearly fond of her.”

She straightened his collar and adjusted his tie a tiny bit. Soames knew there was nothing to tidy about his dress: she was fussing over him! Moved, he bent to kiss her again, and she rose to meet him. Her eyes were closed. Oh, such a gentle kiss it was.

“I must catch my train,” he murmured. One more chaste kiss, then he pulled himself away and made his way to the station.

---

Part 2

IX. Soames sits still

Soames caught his train without difficulty. He found a seat on the left side of the carriage, back to the engine, and settled in for the three-hour journey back to London. The carriage was full of weekending businessmen on their way back to the City; he was by no means alone and had to control every flicker of expression on his face. He wished dearly to be unobserved, but he was not.

He sat motionless as the train eased out of the station.

He was engaged to be married to her.

He’d kissed her.

She hadn’t said the words to him, but neither had she said that she did not and never would. She’d said that she was falling in love, and that was so close to saying that she loved him that he was floating above his seat in the compartment.

He’d sent her red roses before he caught his train. The florist had understood the message immediately and suggested some subtle additions to make the arrangement more aesthetic. He had approved of the result, and asked her to send a second, with some variation, on the following morning. She hadn’t offered congratulations, at least. He was about to hear that far more often than he could endure.

He hadn’t thought he’d want to marry, that first time round. He’d known he would, of course. All men married eventually. He’d believed that in due course he’d find the right time to think of romance and wives and children and whatnot, and would seek to find someone. He hadn’t known that the moment would choose him, that he would walk through a drawing room door and find that love’s arrow could pierce his heart too. A mere slip of a girl, she’d been! Still something youthful in her face, as there was still now.

Why had it been her? He’d seen many pretty girls before, and many beautiful women. He had looked, seen that they were beautiful, perhaps felt a moment of desire, and then forgotten them. What had it been about Irene in that moment? She’d been playing the piano, and Irene when playing was someone different from Irene poised and guarded against the world. She’d been playing a love song—by Robert for Clara Schumann, she’d said. There had been something on her face. He’d never been able to say what it was. It simply had been. From that moment on, his heart had belonged to her.

He was going to be married to Irene. Again.

He looked out of the window. They were well out of Lymington, past Brockenhurst, out of the Forest, and into open country. The sun was setting over green fields and hedges, over sheep and cows. England! His England. His country, in his youth. Impossible, but somehow he was here again, living his youth again.

Would the disaster play out again? Would he once again watch her fall in love with her best friend’s fiancé? Would she hate him again? Would he again have his heart broken? He’d once asked her what the matter was with him, why it was never him, why there was nothing he could do. Nerves, she’d said. What were nerves? Why had she never been able to enjoy his kiss before, when this afternoon she had? Was it that he knew how to kiss a woman now? He certainly hadn’t then. He’d been clumsy and awkward and overwhelmed. But he himself did not mind that she hadn’t known how to kiss him today. Any touch was enough, even a shy kiss that brushed the corner of his mouth with closed lips.

No, he knew that was not it. It was that she had decided that she might love him, and her heart was open to it. Her heart was not already closed off. He had bared himself to her, and she had understood how much that meant for him, how difficult it was for him, somehow, and that had been enough for her to let him in. He had sometimes in his most bitter moments thought that she had decided not to love him and had then made it so by practising hating him until it stuck. But today—today she had touched him simply to show affection.

He sat and dreamed over that moment for a time. Moments like that had been so rare in his life, vanishingly rare. His parents, his sister, his daughter. Never a lover, not until today. He had so longed for that touch from a lover, wondered for so long why it was never for him despite all his attempts to find it. She’d brushed the hair away from his face!

It would be months yet before they could go to bed. Months of engagement, of being chaperoned—though less than they had been—of tedious ceremony until the one ceremony that mattered. There was so much ahead of them.

The work would commence the moment he told his parents. The well-oiled machinery of a family wedding would begin to move: letters would be sent, invitations to at-homes and dinners, visits to the stores, consultations with a decorator. He would find a house to lease for them, somewhere they could live for a few years, that would keep his capital free. Not Montpellier Square this time, he thought, and shuddered. A rising neighbourhood, where they could start a family. Somewhere Irene liked. He would start inquiring immediately. There was so much to do now. He knew what he could afford, thanks to those careful calculations. He knew he would keep improving his position steadily with careful, thoughtful diligence. He would advance and build up his capital and when the time was right, when Irene was ready, they would move to the country. Some place with a river, where he could punt and fish. Keep horses for the children. And cows; he’d rather liked keeping cows at Mapledurham. Who could have known he was a born yeoman farmer?

Children! A son. A grandson for his father. A daughter. A daughter.

He would name a daughter Fleur, so that he would never forget.

He was getting ahead of himself. Find the right house, obtain her approval, decorate it with her. She could tell him what she wanted, and he would cause it to happen for her, in perfect order, exactly as she wished. He would arrange it all. It needed light and air. A flower garden, however small. A drawing room for her piano. The piano! She needed the best piano he could manage. He would need to consult her before he committed to anything, and ensure that whatever house they chose was right for her piano. Yes, that was the proper way to approach the thing. Let her select the piano. Then choose the house to fit the piano and the lease budget, and decorate with the piano as the centre. He would have room for far more paintings than he had now: the Turner, the Monet, and the Corot for certain. He would make sure they had the breathing room on the walls and the quiet backdrop that they wanted. The Watteau he would hang if he had room, even if it was a mere bargaining chip on the way up. The Millet, yes—good old haystacks. Michael had said that once, of the Mauve he’d owned in that other life. Soames had appreciated the fellow for saying it. He wouldn’t know Michael again, would he? Or Michael’s father, whom he’d rather liked. A moment of pain: justice. He touched his chest, where it hurt, and let himself mourn for a moment.

But the sweetness of what was ahead of him won out, as it would continue to do, and Soames found himself thinking again of where they would live, and where he might hang his paintings, so that he could share them with her. He would not keep them secret this time. He would tell her about them. Perhaps he would rotate the paintings he displayed, and keep his current favourite in his study, for only the two of them to talk about.

He hoped Irene would not mind too much that he didn’t want ornate papers or dark colours on the walls. He’d have to ask. What did she like to look at? What colours did she prefer? He knew what colours he found restful, and what he preferred to gaze at in the evenings when he was taking his ease after a long day of work. She’d never told him. They would have to find a way to have both in a single place, in her drawing room. An armchair where he could sit with a glass in his hand, watching her play the piano. Perhaps a chaise for her nearby, so they could be near enough to touch when reading of an evening.

The bedroom—and here his heart beat faster—the bedroom was hers to furnish, in the main, but he would insist on a good brass bed. The rest of the bedroom he would leave to her, but he wanted a bed they could share. He’d have a dressing room, yes, somewhere to shave, and something to sleep on when she needed him elsewhere, but he wanted to be with her every night she would have him. He didn’t have to embrace her every night—not unless she wanted him—but he wanted to be near her. To wake with her.

He cupped his hand around his face to block out the gaslight and looked out the window. The sun had set, and the sky was orange and red, streaked with clouds above the horizon. Above that, dark green shading up to deeper blue and black. His engagement day was coming to a close. What was Irene doing? Was she playing the piano? Thinking of him as he was thinking of her? He’d given her his address and promised to write. They could write now, freely, and he would. What would he tell her? How he felt; that was the important thing. He’d send her more music. He needed to go back to Augener’s now that he knew she’d liked both choices, and ask the fellow to suggest more. More Brahms? She needed new things, and she had no Mozart. Did she have enough Liszt? Perhaps.

The house was going to take a deal of thought and planning to perfect for her. What else was there that was his to manage? The wedding date was hers to choose. She would have to talk to his mother—not her step-mother—and work out frocks and all the rest of what she would wear. There was going to be an embarrassment about who paid for it all. He wasn’t going to have her wearing anything less than the best he could manage, so it would have to be got over. Settlement, pin money—there was going to be a fuss about that, too. Soames sighed, sitting there on the train, surrounded by businessmen heading back to the City after a weekend at the sea. Money was going to be a fuss for his father and for that Lomax fellow. If Lomax had the good manners to stop his mouth about it, it wouldn’t be so bad. His father would fuss, and that couldn’t be helped.

Over Soames’s face crept a fond expression that he’d lost the ability to suppress.

Engagements were such a tedious business. Weddings were at least over quickly. After the wedding came the honeymoon. His heart beat faster again for a moment, and he breathed carefully. It wouldn’t do, not in a full train compartment, to dwell on that thought too long. When would it be? Six months, say, October or early November.

The south of France did not interest him. Paris, though, she loved Paris, and taking her there and showing her Paris at leisure, Paris with money instead of a student’s living—she would like that. And he would like another chance to wander Rue Laffitte and look. The Louvre, yes, he had more to learn from the Louvre. He would stand and study and think. Colour. Shape. Light. The things he loved to think about. No doubt she would tell him what music there was to listen to. He would suggest Paris, and she would smile at him and perhaps kiss him and he would ask her what she especially wished to do. And then she would squeeze his hand.

Italy, though—Rome would be lovely to see again, so beautiful and ancient. She hadn’t seen it yet. Italy in the autumn would be stunning. They could take a house in Rome. It would be warmer, and the nights would be lovelier than those in Paris, he felt. They would eat good food, drink Italian wine, listen to good music, look at art, walk about the city arm in arm, and go to bed together every night. It would be heaven.

Soames leaned back in his seat and was caught in perfect, pleasurable indecision. Whichever city they went to, he would indulge her in whatever she wanted. That was his role. She would wish for something, and he would arrange it. He would delight her during the days and during the nights—during the nights, they would, they would—Soames swallowed. He could not decide; she would have to. He would write to her and ask for her opinion in the morning. It was rather cart before horse, to start with the honeymoon, but confound it all, he would give her everything.

The wedding—He needed a best man. He had too many cousins, but there was a general dislike in the air separating each branch of the family, each brother’s sons from the other’s. He got on with the Nicholases well despite this. Beyond the family—he had acquaintances from school, and business acquaintances. Some men he dined with more often than others. He saw Parkes often at the Connoisseurs, and did a considerable business with him. They’d been thick as thieves at school; he’d had rather a moment blacking the eye of a boy who’d insulted Parkes once. He wasn’t intimate with Parkes in any way. They shared no confidences, unless one counted Parkes’s business dealings as confidences, but they were easy with each other. And Parkes had called on Soames for aid in a pinch over that shipping insurance confusion. Soames had provided it without hesitation, and Parkes had been warm to him in the months since. That was friendship, he supposed, and had an odd moment thinking it. He hadn’t many friends, no matter what he imagined a friend to be, but he was not friendless. Parkes was a friend.

He had to rethink everything he was experiencing. His life hadn’t been as bleak as he had felt it to be. He hadn’t been as alone. Or—he need not be as alone as he had the first time. He wouldn’t know Fleur, but he would know other people. Other children. Would it be enough of a comfort? Irene would be enough. If she loved him. If he continued to get it right.

His thumb sought his signet ring and comfort, but his glove was in the way. Soames shifted uneasily in his seat. How much longer had he to endure? The sun had fully set, and he could no longer make out anything outside the window. He reached with his left hand for his watch, opened it, checked the time. Half an hour, then maybe another twenty to reach his chambers.

He leaned back again in his seat, aware of the people around him, and set himself to wait patient and still until the train reached Waterloo.

X. Emily makes plans

Soames went to his club, not his chambers, to eat a late dinner. He found himself able to eat more than he had the last few days, but he was still not entirely settled and at ease. At least the wine was good; this had always been the strong point of the Connoisseurs.

After dinner he walked to his chambers, bag in hand, to tire his body out enough that he could sleep. He’d sat rather too long on the train, and was feeling restless. The streets were damp from rain earlier in the day and London smelled foul. He’d forgotten this as well. It was the heart of the Nation, and it was grey and gloomy and acrid and miserable. It was London, and he had a good deal of money to make here yet. He’d be in London for a few years more.

The porter let him into his chambers with a tip of the cap and a cheerful quiet greeting. Soames was cordial in return, and made his way up to his rooms. The fire was lit, and the room was warm. He sat at his desk, stylographic pen in hand, and set himself to write his first letter to Irene. He was unsure what to say to her that he had not already said: was there any novelty in saying again what she must already know? Surely he ought to say it, because he himself would be comforted to hear it from her. But what words to use? Baffled, he wrote what came to mind, straightforwardly. He hoped it would do.

Victoria Street, London My dear Irene— I write this from my chambers. I spent my time on the train thinking of you and where we might go on our honeymoon. I will take you anywhere you wish to go. Rome in autumn would be beautiful, but I should love you to show me Paris. Please do tell me what you prefer. Tomorrow I shall tell my family the news and my mother shall write to your step-mother, immediately I hope. There shall be a great unavoidable fuss to endure. I am, yours most sincerely, S. Forsyte

He ran down to post the letter in time for the night mail, then back up to his chambers. He wasted no time undressing, changing into his nightshirt, and wrapping himself in his dressing gown. He poured himself a whisky from the tantalus, splashed in soda, then sat on his armchair with his feet drawn up and an arm around his knees. He stared at the glowing coals. Sleep was, apparently, still not ready to grace him with its presence.

Well, the die was cast, he’d crossed the Rubicon, and landed on the other side. He was now on his way to Rome. A huge tension was gone from him, such a burden rolled from him. The grief was there, and would always be there, the reminder of what he had lost, but it would fade as grief always did. That was the thing: you thought you would never get past it, but then you did. Its sharp edges would be blunted by time, and one day you would realise that a week had passed and you hadn’t thought of your father, or your mother. And a day would come when he hadn’t thought of Fleur for a week, a month. It wouldn’t ever amount to a year, but the tears would end. He could remember his aunts and uncles and how it felt to be at Timothy’s and drink tea with them all, but he couldn’t remember their voices, not precisely. Would a day come when he could not remember Fleur’s voice, what it sounded like when she called him Daddy? It hurt even to think of it.

He’d accepted his punishment. It was done.

The week ahead would be the calm before the storm of work for the engagement. He would have social burdens to endure. He might rather stay quietly in his chambers reading, or be in Lymington with Irene, but it would all be an endless calendar of dinners and afternoon calls and at-homes and fittings for clothing. The business of decorating a house would be pleasant. They’d do that together. He’d be able to let her tell him what she liked, what she wanted things to look like, what make of piano she wanted instead of whatever it was she played in Lymington.

Soames picked up the poker and rearranged the coals. The spring evening was not the warmest, and the damp had chilled the corners of his chambers away from the fire. He drank more of his whisky and felt himself relax further. He’d been near the breaking point until the afternoon, until Irene had kissed him. So much strain had left him at that moment, decades of fretting and loneliness, and the last few days of complete gnawing worry, all easing in a moment of touch. When he thought about that, it all felt wonderful and entirely worthwhile—the engagement and all those family dinners were a mere nothing, if he’d be kissing her every day and at the end of it all, marrying her.

He slowly absorbed the rest of his whisky dreaming over the day in deep contentment, thinking about those kisses, about the way she’d smiled at him, about her caress of his face. He banked the fire and went to bed in the closest thing he’d felt to peace in a very long time.

Soames went to the office next day feeling calmer at last. He knew who he was: a solicitor, the son of James, soon to be the husband of Irene; he knew what he was about. He worked hard all day long on nothing particularly difficult or interesting. He had forgotten until now what it had been like when he was an ambitious up-and-coming man, but now he was reminded, and he found it was not objectionable. He took smaller clients, the fry his father was not interested in—this was, after all, why he had pursued Mrs Heron’s query when his father had felt there was no money to be had there. Well, he had to prove himself, and meanwhile he would quietly do the work of two men, because he could. And with the extra income, he would do a bit of canny investing and start accumulating capital. He could be well on his way to that country house sooner than expected if he kept his head and thought things through properly.

He worked through lunch without thinking about it, but was jarred back to reality and the demands of his body when his father came into his office in the late afternoon.

“You’ve had your nose to the grindstone all day,” James said.

“Rather a lot to do.”

“Better that than not. Your mother says she wants you to come to dinner tonight. She has some idea that you’re not eating enough. I dare say you look a bit thin.”

Soames would ordinarily have cast up his eyes and complained about his mother being ridiculous, but he could not deny the truth of it. “Anybody else coming?” he asked, while looking down at a brief.

“Just the three of us. Why do you want to know?”

“Hmm? Don’t feel like having to make conversation.”

James sniffed. “Can’t say I blame you.”

And that was convenient; he did not have to call at tea-time to break the news. Instead he could go talk to Winifred and get her advice on—well, he didn’t know what he needed her advice on. He simply wanted to tell Winifred and be congratulated by her. He left the Poultry before tea-time and made his way to Mayfair to call on Winifred and tell her the news.

When he called, Winifred was in her drawing room, with yet another lending-library novel, and more than delighted to see him.

“Well?”

Soames gave her no reply, but sat next to her on the sofa. She took both his hands in hers.

“Well?” she said again, insistently.

“I am engaged to be married,” Soames said. He thought his happiness might have been bright enough to shine through every window in Winifred’s drawing room like a little sun. So was Winifred’s, and the brother and sister sat together beaming at each other.

“Oh, my dear boy, I am so happy for you!”

“Thank you.”

“You are in love with her, I can see it on your face.”

Soames flushed. “You may say that.”

“Does she love you?”

“I believe so. She—she let me kiss her. Winifred, she is marvellous.”

Winifred embraced him, and Soames held her in return, and was reminded once more of how she had always been there for him, and he for her. This time, he hoped, she need not be there for him when he was at his lowest and most despairing, when he had nearly given up on life itself and had wanted merely to hide himself away. This time, he would share joy with his sister. And he would be there to prevent Dartie from doing the worst of what he’d done, now that he knew what to watch for.

She made tea for him, put exactly the right amount of milk into it, just a bit of sugar, and he drank with pleasure. He wasn’t making a fuss about it, he wasn’t a different man entirely, but he would let himself show his feelings now and then to people he could trust with them. Enjoying tea was surely not a dangerous thing to share with Winifred. He ate bread and butter and drank tea and life was, at that moment, perfect. Winifred quizzed him about Irene, and he was more than happy to answer.

When he stood to leave, he said, “Listen, Winifred, you must promise me not to tell anyone until tomorrow. I want to tell Father myself. If you tell Dartie it’ll be all over London by midnight.”

“Of course, dear. I understand perfectly well.”

Winifred kissed his cheek and pressed his hands with more than her usual warmth, and Soames felt it was good to have family.

He went from Green Street to his chambers, to rest a little and change for dinner. Irene’s response to his letter arrived in the evening post while he was changing; the Post was a marvel. He hastily sliced open the envelope: an entire sheet of paper with writing on both sides! He felt abashed that he had written so little in comparison and delighted that she had written so much. He sat down by a window to read.

Lymington My dear Soames, Paris, I think, if I may be selfish. I would indeed like to show you the places I loved best and have you show me what you loved in return. I long for you to listen to music I love with me, and for you to show me paintings that you love. The sea has been heavy and the winds steady since you left. Lymington is not at its best when it is damp and grey like this. Perhaps a different way to think of the spring rain is to think of Schumann’s “Einsame Blumen”—or perhaps only one lonely flower, in my mind—a dark purple flower under a grey sky, raindrops upon it, dancing a little in the wind but unbowed. I told you that the Grieg “Watchman” piece reminded me of you: upright, alone, dignified, my protector. This solemn silent man who visited every weekend and took me to concerts I would never have been able to hear without him: this man loved me. When I came to see him for who he was, I found he might be stealing my heart. Tell me, do you like purple flowers? Are there paintings that you wish to tell me about? Affectionately, IH

He was stealing her heart? How? His hand was shaking so hard the paper rattled. It was the first love letter he had received in his life—in either life. He took in a long breath, let it out, and sat at his desk to write his response.

Victoria St, London My dear Irene, Paris it is. We have one detail settled, at least. The prospect makes me most happy. I would guard and cherish a purple flower were I to find one lonely in the spring rain. I would not pluck it. It would be too precious. I have always loved Turner’s watercolours but also his earlier oil paintings of the sea, in calm or in storm. There is something about the colour and the beauty of what is either stillness or great violence in the waves that captivates me. There is one in particular of Venice that I can show you when you visit London, which I hope you shall soon. In the absence of other plans from our families, I should like to see you on Saturday. That is not said strongly enough—I will go no longer than Saturday without seeing you. I shall be in Lymington at noon. I am, yours most sincerely, S. Forsyte P.S.: How do you feel about moustaches? I was thinking of growing a short one.

Soames stood and went to his chest of drawers, slid open a drawer, and found his pocket-book where he kept the fragments of his courtship: handbills, concert programmes, dance cards, train tickets, her step-mother’s notes to him, two pressed daffodils, and now her first letter to him.

He finished dressing for dinner and made his way to Park Lane, posting his reply on the way.

He arrived at Park Lane steely-eyed and over-controlled after his emotional display the last time he had visited. He was braced to be cool and reserved, wary of what they might be watching for in him. He congratulated himself that he was keeping his face well under control, but one baleful, doubtful, accusing look from his father told him that perhaps he was not as cool a customer as he intended to be. His mother was playing with her jewellery rather more than usual and she did have an eye on him, but it was more affectionate than suspicious. They both knew something was up, simply by whatever was on his face. Well, he was their son. They knew him better than anyone else did. Here he sat, in the home where he had grown up, eating dinner with them as he had so many times before. It was so familiar and so strange and he’d missed it so very much and not known he’d missed it. His heart ached and was fulfilled in the same moment.

It was a small family dinner, just the three of them at one end of the rectangular table, with Soames across from his mother. The room was warm from the candles burning, their light dancing and flickering on the table. Beeswax candles again, faintly sweet. Everything in the room looked richer and warmer in the candle-light: the wine in the glasses shone, the silver glowed, his parents’ faces were warmed. It was, to his eye, strangely beautiful in a way he’d never recognised before. Soames drank his father’s sherry and found himself taking his soup with more than usual interest. His mother’s household, his mother’s tastes, his mother’s cook—they were not his taste, but they were comforting. Simple, English, satisfying.

His father talked about the business of the day, which had been ordinary—that is to say, good—and about a case Roger wanted to bring against a tenant.

Soames set down his spoon long enough to say that he thought it a mistake.

“Roger’s a stubborn chap,” James said. “I can’t reason with him. Well, the fee’s the same for us either way.”

“Still, I’d rather it’s known we gave him the right advice.”

“You have a good head on you,” James said, and his eye on his son was sharper than usual.

Warmson cleared the soup, served the fish. He silently refilled Soames’s sherry glass. Soames ate his fish steadily, listening to his father talk about Roger’s ill-advised suit, making monosyllabic responses when it seemed necessary.

The fish was taken away. On to the main: lamb tonight. Soames was surprised to find himself hungry at last. The claret was decent as well. His father’s claret had always been a respectable solid thing. The lamb was not what would have been on the table at Mapledurham, not with that sauce—having had a French wife for years did affect one’s palate—but it was solid and filling and delicious nonetheless. Comfortable, that was the word, as it was for everything in Emily’s home. He had never known a place more restful or more perfectly attuned to bodily comforts, from the warm sheets to the cake with tea to the generosity of her menus.

“Tell me, dear,” Emily said, “how was your weekend in Lymington?”

James made a movement and his fork clattered to the floor. Warmson appeared and silently, smoothly, replaced it. Ah. Now they came to the reason he was here. Soames had another mouthful of claret, to buy himself a moment of time. He cast about for a way to describe it that wouldn’t immediately give everything away, but could not find one. Might as well say it immediately.

He set his wine glass down and looked at his mother. “Miss Heron has agreed to marry me.”

“My dear boy! I am so happy for you!” Emily was out of her seat and before he could slip out of his own to stand for her she had her arms around him and was kissing his forehead. Soames put an arm around her waist.

“Why didn’t you tell us straight away when you arrived? Well, never mind that. Is she pretty?” Emily asked, still petting him. He decided not to mind, but instead leaned into her.

“Irene is beautiful,” he said, and there was such certainty in his voice that his father made a distressed sound. Soames chose to ignore it. He craned up and received another warm kiss from his mother, then kissed her cheek in turn.

His father burst out: “She’s got no money!”

Soames closed his eyes and with all his self-control said, “She doesn’t need any. I have more than enough for us both.”

“It’s not that! It’s that she’s not bringing anything into the marriage! You could make a much better match—”

“I’m marrying her,” Soames said, and the finality of those words was such a shock that his father fell silent. He went on, determined to end this once and for all: “I care for her and she cares for me. I need no more from her than that.”

He flushed dark red at how much he’d shown of himself to them both, how clearly he’d revealed his feelings. His mother kissed him again, rather predictably, then returned to her seat, as if to say that it was decided.

“I shall write to her step-mother so we can get acquainted nicely. What is her name now? She’s married somebody else, you said.”

“Her step-father is named Lomax. Her step-mother is now Mrs Lomax.” Soames kept his face as cool as he could, but he could not help the twitch of distaste; his mother saw it. Soames looked at her, studiously ignoring his father. “I’ll give you their address, Mother.”

“Of course, dear. We shall have them up to London to visit as soon as possible. And if dear Irene wishes to stay here for a time—”

“I think she would like that.” Irene in Park Lane, in his parents’ home? To be able to see her without travelling for hours first? He could dine with her every evening, send her flowers every day, ensure that she had new music to play every morning when she woke up. He of course would be banished to his chambers for the duration, but this hardly mattered.

“The gentlemen will want to work out the financial arrangements, I suppose.”

James made a distressed sound, through a mouthful of lamb.

“There won’t be much to work out, I suspect,” said Soames. He immediately set to work again on his own lamb so as to prevent James from attempting to ask him anything about what that meant.

The remainder of the main course was eaten in silence, though not an unhappy one: Emily was beaming and even James had moved past distress to some kind of grim acceptance that his son was beyond his control. Soames himself was content, having got his news out and eaten the first good meal he’d had since awakening on that train.

Warmson served the sweet—treacle tarts—and was beckoned over by James midway. They had some kind of quiet conference, and Warmson left. Soames found himself unable to eat his tart after a single bite to taste it; he had no appetite for sweets and never had. James ate his, then chased the last bite around his plate with a spoon.

Warmson appeared with a crusty bottle of something and presented it to James. Soames could not see it properly, but Emily raised her brows and looked at James. Soames saw something on her face that he’d never seen there before, a private look that made him embarrassed to have seen, because of how much it revealed about what his parents felt about each other. She betrayed nothing of this in any other way at all, but it was enough for him to have new awareness.

The three of them watched Warmson as he opened the bottle, and decanted it carefully through a square of muslin. He poured a thimble-full into a glass and handed it to James. James tasted and then made a satisfied sound. Warmson filled the glass, then filled a second and presented it rather ceremoniously to Soames, with the words, “I congratulate you, sir.” Then he vanished definitively.

Soames, puzzled, tasted what he’d been given to drink. He paused with an eyebrow up, then drank a mouthful more.

“That’s rather good,” he said. It was possibly the best port he’d ever tasted from his father’s cellar.

“It ought to be,” said James, doubtfully. “Your uncle Swithin gave me a dozen bottles when I married your mother. Only two left. Was waiting for you to have a very special occasion for the last of them.”

“Thank you, Father.” He lifted his glass to his father, and had a second taste. He couldn’t remember his father taking this port out before, and he would have remembered this. It was special indeed: a scant dozen bottles, kept from even before he’d been born. For some reason his father had opened a valuable bottle tonight, with no one else to notice. Soames smiled down into his glass, and had a little more. It was, for James, an extravagant gesture, and perhaps an apology.

James looked down into his own glass and sniffed. “I don’t know, I can’t tell. You seem so sure of yourself.”

He had been last time as well, so disastrously. Was he sure of himself this time?

Soames considered his father. He was tempted, briefly, to say something to James, to reveal his uncertainties and worries and how he fretted about his ability to love his wife properly and care for her with all the consideration she deserved, even if things were to go wrong. But he and his father did not talk about the deeper matters of life. They were unshakable allies, now and forever, and he was certain his father knew this, but to talk of it was another matter. He would have been moved had Fleur asked for his advice about love, for guidance about that fellow’s son or about Michael—a good chap, a solid man, and entirely worthy of Fleur. But Fleur hadn’t asked, so he hadn’t offered, and he could not ask his own father now.

“I’m sure about Irene,” he said, in the end.

“You know your own mind,” James said, gruffly. “I suppose I must congratulate you.”

“Thank you.”

They drank their port together, and Soames thought he saw satisfaction on his father’s face, despite all the fretting.

“You’ll see,” he said to his father again, quietly. “You’ll meet her and understand.”

James said absolutely nothing, but sat in his chair, uncharacteristically quiet, drinking the port his twin had given him.

“Swithin has a palate,” James said, eventually.

“Yes.”

“He’s an odd chap. Never have understood him.”

Soames had nothing to say to this, and so said nothing. They emptied their glasses, silently. The three of them moved out to the drawing room, where coffee awaited. James stood, back to the fire, eyes on his son.

“I don’t know,” he said.

“It’ll be all right,” Soames said. He set his coffee down and stood, and drifted over beside his father, and as if by accident found himself close enough to touch a hand to his father’s shoulder. “Pater,” he said, using the name he and Winifred had used as children.

James looked at him sidelong, doleful and doubtful and fretful as he ever was.

“I should like to give you a grandson,” Soames said, very quietly. He saw his mother turn her head towards him abruptly, then control herself. He swallowed hard, but he’d said it. He was at pains not to accidentally meet his father’s eyes. His last words to James, the last words he’d shared with his father on his deathbed, had been a lie about his child. A son, he’d said. It had been Fleur instead, and Soames hadn’t minded, but his father would have, if he’d lived. This time he would do his best. He wouldn’t wait. He and Irene would—would—if it were truly a love match, then it would happen.

“I hope you will approve of Irene once you meet her.”

“We trust you,” Emily said. “You have always done the right thing.”

“I try,” said Soames. “I can be wrong at times. But with her—”

“You’re in love with her,” said James, unexpectedly.

“I am.” And Soames was surprised at himself for saying that.

James went to his armchair and sat down heavily for such a scarecrow of a man. He looked up at his son with worried, anxious eyes. “And she?”

“And she.”

“Then there it is.”

Soames sat down again to finish his coffee peacefully. He rather doubted that his father would leave it at that: he might have accepted that his son was making a love match, but he had years of fussing about the money ahead of him. He would enjoy the fussing, no doubt, and invent many novel manners of expressing it. And speaking of which, he had better get some things out, and set the fussing in motion straight away.

“She’ll need a dressmaker,” he said to his mother. “She has none at present.”

“We shall send her to mine, dear. I’ll take care of it all.”

“And mother—”

“Yes, my dear boy?”

“The Lomaxes won’t have the—that is, I shall want to pay for what she needs, discreetly.”

Emily was all seriousness suddenly. “Is it as bad as that?”

“For Irene, yes. I’m not sure her step-father feels the obligation.” Soames shook his head. “Her step-mother does, but she does not have the means for what the family expects. We shall need to manage it quietly.”

“Manage what quietly?” said James.

Emily closed her eyes for a moment, then opened them with some newly-formed plan. “Miss Heron is at a disadvantage, in that her step-father is insensitive to her needs. Soames was telling me he wishes to pay for her trousseau without her being the wiser, because her step-parents cannot manage it for her.”

“What! Soames hasn’t got the money for that sort of thing! He’s just getting started!”

“And she’ll need the household linens arranged, which her step-father is also unwilling to act upon.”

“You women seem to think a man is made of money! Soames can’t possibly spare that kind of capital at his age!”

“It’s all right, Father,” Soames said. “I can spare it.” He felt that stubborn frustration heating inside himself. He’d avoided this argument the first time round by means of talking to Mrs Lomax directly, which had been somewhat excruciating, but the bills had gone directly to him and no one had been the wiser. He thought Irene hadn’t liked the results of the dressmaking, however, and neither had his mother, so he had tried another approach this time. Now he regretted it.

“Nonsense! You shan’t do any such thing. I’ll arrange with this Lomack fellow to take care of it all without anyone being the wiser. You’ve got the house to pay for. See! This is what comes of marrying a woman without any money! I told you how it would be.”

“You will not. I can manage on my own,” Soames said again, doggedly.

“I won’t have it!” James said, and that was that.

Soames saw what his mother had done, and resolved never to be that much trouble in his old age. Then he shivered. He was beginning to forget. He remembered and yet he forgot. He had the wisdom of his years and yet—he had been an old man. Had Annette managed him? At times, and he’d known it, and let her do it. He looked down into his coffee cup, hiding his urge to laugh. And so may we all live to be managed by our wives, he thought. And our mothers, for Emily had managed him just as neatly, and he knew it.

He set his empty cup down, and rose to leave.

“Thank you,” Soames said to his father. He went to him and leaned down to kiss his forehead. Then he stepped quietly over to his mother. “Mrs Lomax’s address,” he said, and gave her a card. “She is expecting you to write.” He leaned down and kissed her as well. She gave him the comfort of her embrace and kiss in response.

It would once have been formality for him, the gesture of kissing one’s parents, the performance of affection, but for Soames now, it was heartfelt and he thought it would ever be so. He would never forget what it was like to be without family, what it was like to be the head of the family, alone at the top, presumed the wisest whether he felt so or not, the most responsible, taking care of them all and advising them all when they were in need. He had done that for thirty years, more, after Old Jolyon had abandoned his post and James after him had retired. He had succeeded to the role far younger than anyone had expected, and shouldered the family burden. For now, he could kiss his father and mother, and know himself not yet called to serve. He could kiss them, so he would kiss them out of love.

There was another relief in him tonight: the machinery was in motion: the engagement was official, and it would proceed now inevitably no matter what he or Irene thought of it. If asked, he would admit himself grateful for the aid of his family in making it all happen without unnecessary fuss, but no one would ask such an obvious thing of him. It was merely how things were.

Soames made his way out to the hall, where Warmson appeared without sound to help him into his coat and hand him his top hat.

And so to his chambers; and so to his bed.

XI. Soames and Parkes smoke

The next evening, Soames returned to his chambers from a day of work hoping to find a letter waiting for him, but did not. He was disappointed and upset with himself for feeling so. He washed, changed into evening dress, and walked across the city in the darkening night, hoping to give himself an appetite. His destination was his club, where he wanted to find some dinner, and maybe talk to Parkes if he were there.

He’d been a member of the Connoisseurs his entire adult life, and a member of the Remove after his uncle Nicholas had put him up for it in the Nineties. He’d never felt truly at ease in his clubs, though of course one had to have one. It was a place to dine, or get a cup of tea in the afternoon, or to collect his post when he didn’t have an address in the city any more. But he’d always felt uncomfortable listening to his fellows talking to each other. They didn’t say things he understood or liked much of the time. He’d never forgotten listening to them at the start of the War, eager for blood to be shed and young men to die, convinced that the war would be over by Christmas. The fools.

But now it was disturbing in a way he hadn’t expected. Now, listening to men talk, he came to understand he had changed over the years more than he’d thought. The men around him had attitudes about things he wasn’t sure about any more, and this was a surprise to him. He was no radical; he changed cautiously, when change became clearly rational. If civilisation progressed forward, then surely he had progressed with it naturally. The past was therefore backward. This was a strange thing to think, for a man who was not normally philosophical.

Being Fleur’s father had altered him. It wasn’t merely that having her in his life had made him happier, though it had. She had spun his attitudes around. Would he be content to think that anyone Fleur married would immediately claim all her property? No. He had not worked as hard as he had for all those years so some fellow could run off with his wealth, which ought to be hers. It would be hers now. He had taken pains even before his death to ensure Fleur had her own money and could be entirely independent if Michael turned out to be rotten, another Dartie or worse. He hadn’t—Michael was a good sort, and would be taking care of Fleur now that he was in his grave below the crab-apple tree. It was a matter of considering all the contingencies. Soames had indeed considered them. Someone ought to consider them now for Irene. He hadn’t considered them last time, and Irene had been penniless the moment she’d left his home for the last time. He hadn’t thought ahead for her properly. He’d botched it.

Soames ate thoughtfully and drank wine. It was odd that he who had a horror of bad form and of being perceived to be out of step with what was expected of him, should now be so wholly disconnected from what was expected of him. He’d spent his life trying not to be noticed lest anyone discover how ill-at-ease he was, and how much he struggled to get on, and now he was in danger of being noticed, by his family if by no one else. He couldn’t be the man he’d been in ’81 the first time. He’d lived a mere week in the past, and he already knew himself to be a man who fit in nowhere.

At least the club dinners and wine were good. At least he could sit here and not talk to anybody if he didn’t want to.

After he’d eaten and relaxed enough to feel himself eased, and mostly stopped his mind from spinning in pointless circles, he asked the waiter if Parkes were in the club. He was, the waiter said, and thought Mr Forsyte would find Mr Parkes in the smoking room.

Parkes was indeed in the smoking room, in his usual quiet corner, feet up and a folding map in his hand. A cigarette burned in the tray next to his elbow, forgotten, while he considered the map. Soames stole over to him and paused beside his footstool, hands behind his back. Parkes looked up and smiled. He gestured to the neighbouring armchair and Soames sat.

“Join me in a drink?” Soames said.

“Thanks, yes.” Parkes took his cigarette case out of his coat pocket and flicked it open. “Cigarette?”

“No, thanks. Looking out for what’s next?”

“I think I have something interesting to pursue. I’ll let you know when I need you.”

“Of course.”

Soames sat with his whisky and soda and contemplated Parkes. He was unmarried, almost exactly Soames’s age, but rather better-looking, with a tawny flowing moustache and a great deal of hair. He was also far more graceful and easy with people, and had a way with ladies and business clients alike. Soames would ordinarily say that he had no use for charm, but he could see how Parkes made use of it. Parkes was doing well for himself, and was doing a steady bit of speculation in house properties east of London, and solid re-investment of the resulting spare capital guided by Soames’s own canny advice. This endeavour had been profitable for the both of them, and they were therefore always satisfied to see each other, and always had something mutually pleasant to say.

To add to this, the bond between them over the eye-blacking incident had not wavered. Soames had no idea how it had been he who had risen to the occasion, but he did recall being rather offended about the whole affair. The insult had been factually wrong, and the other boy had attempted to strike Parkes from behind. Soames had delivered his response to that—a left upper-cut—neatly and honourably from in front. The resulting punishment from the headmaster—a rare event for Soames—had been worth the act, and Soames had borne it stoically. The friendship was silently unbreakable from that moment on. Even now Parkes was considerably warmer to him than the rest of his school acquaintances. They rarely talked of anything particularly deep.

Soames crossed his knees. He drank a little; it was better whisky than he kept at home. Parkes stretched his feet out closer to the fire and lit another cigarette. He held it between two fingers in a hand dangling over the arm of his chair. The smoke, curling up blue between them, was pleasant to Soames; Parkes had a good tobacconist.

They were quiet, and this was another reason the friendship soothed him. Parkes had always let him be silent, even when they’d been at school. Whatever had happened to Parkes? Oh. He’d lost track of him in the first couple of years after Irene had left him, when he’d taken to not speaking to anyone at all about anything other than work. He’d lost track of quite a few people during that time. For the first time, he wondered what might have happened if he’d gone to Parkes and sat with him like this, and told him a little about it. Well. Water under the bridge.

The whisky had warmed him enough: he had the courage to tell Parkes something rather more pleasant.

“I wanted to let you know,” Soames said, “that I’m engaged to be married.”

Parkes sat up straight and looked him over. “Congratulations, old man. I had no idea you were even looking to be married.”

“I wasn’t, until—” Soames made a gesture with his fingers, as if to downplay it all. “Would you stand by me?” That diffidently, uncertain of his welcome.

But Parkes seemed well-pleased, and clapped him on the shoulder, as he always did. Soames flinched to be touched, as he always did, but felt himself uncoil a little bit inside anyway.

Parkes said, “Of course, Forsyte. Of course. Honoured to be asked.”

“Thanks,” Soames said, and it was heartfelt.

Parkes leaned back and blew a long stream of smoke out into the air. “It’s been an odd year here, you know.”

“What do you mean?”

“Saturday afternoons—no more Forsyte sitting in the corner barricaded behind the Times. Thought you’d changed clubs or found some scandalous habit.”

“Not scandalous, but I suppose I did.”

“Bainbridge told me, eventually. One of your cousins told him you’d been calling on a young lady near Bournemouth.” Parkes flicked another ash. “I didn’t press. Thought you’d speak when you had something to say. And here we are.”

Soames felt his face warm in a way that had nothing to do with the whisky. It had not occurred to him that his absences had been noticed, still less that they had been allowed to be private. He’d thought no one was looking. He’d never imagined anyone would.

“Thank you,” he said, unsure what he was thanking Parkes for.

“Don’t mention it, old man.”

They sat quietly for a bit. Soames held his whisky more than drank it; Parkes smoked.

“So,” Parkes said, after a while, “tell me about this woman who’s managed to distract you from the science of making money.”

Soames had just finished explaining how beautiful she was, and what a talented pianist she was, when Parkes laughed. “What?” he said, indignantly.

“Thought you didn’t care for music, but here you are telling me all about some dashed Norwegian composer.” Parkes signalled one of the club waiters for another round of whisky.

Soames flushed. “She has a way of luring one in.”

“She must be beautiful indeed to have melted your icy soul.”

Had he an icy soul? Soames objected to the idea. “I’m not as bad as all that,” he said.

“I’m afraid you are, Forsyte.” But Parkes was smiling at him. “You kept that quiet, didn’t you? A year of dancing attendance on her and you breathed not a word to me.”

“I didn’t mean—I had no idea what to say. What if she didn’t—”

Parkes let out a long stream of smoke from his lips. “Don’t fret, Forsyte. Whatever’s churning on inside that complicated head of yours, let it rest. I’m your man.”

The waiter quietly delivered two more glasses and vanished. Soames lifted his glass to Parkes and drank to him. Why hadn’t he said anything? He’d been afraid of revealing how much he felt before he was sure of her. He would have looked a fool to be refused and to have had his friend know it. Soames bit his lip, gently, and thought about this. If Parkes had been thrown over he’d have bought Parkes a drink and been sympathetic, and not thought him a fool in the least. He had to rethink his entire life, every friendship, every family bond, never mind his love for Irene. He’d mucked them all up badly, it seemed.

Parkes lit his third cigarette. The smell of good tobacco had finally tempted him too much, and Soames said, “Here, if you’re smoking another I’ll have one.”

He leaned forward and let Parkes light it for him: the scratch and smell of a vesta, Parkes’s hand steadying his, the first puff with the match against the end of the cigarette. It had been years since he’d smoked anything but the occasional contemplative cigar. The smoke smelled fine and it tasted good, but it made him cough if he inhaled too deeply. He restricted himself to shallow puffs and a couple of attempts to blow smoke rings. He’d learned the trick of it for a time, towards the end. Irene had never liked tobacco, and he ought not, but it did give him something to do with his hands, and that was soothing.

Parkes settled his feet on the footstool again and said, “What changed your mind? About women. You seemed uninterested.”

“I was interested! Not with any of the ones I’d met.”

“What about her caught you? And don’t tell me how pretty she is.”

Soames tried another smoke ring and managed it for once. He watched it float away and thought about this. She’d caught his attention before he’d spoken with her, but their conversation had solidified it. What about it?

“She told me I was wrong to say she should give up her ambition because she thought she couldn’t reach the top. She was going to keep trying.”

“Sounds a bit like you.”

“I shouldn’t say that.”

“She can’t reach the top of what, being a concert pianist? Five men in the world reach that, and I can name only one woman. She’s as determined as you are.”

“Hadn’t thought of it that way.”

“Why is she marrying you if she’s so determined?”

Soames smiled to himself, thinking of her letters. Then he thought about the question more seriously. “I suspect I’m the first man who’s understood it matters to her.”

Parkes made a satisfied sound. “There it is. I should like to meet her.”

“They’re coming up to London before too long, I think, and there’ll be dinners. I’ll have my mother invite you for an evening or two if you’re free.”

“Shan’t miss the chance to talk to the woman who discovered the heart frozen inside the Forsyte glacier.”

Soames cast up his eyes and sighed. “At least my mother puts on a good dinner.”

“She does indeed.”

“She’ll want to know if there’s anyone to invite for your sake,” he said, and he would once have cast up his eyes again upon saying it. No more! All men ought to be engaged to be married to women they loved.

Parkes shrugged. “No one woman, really. I’ve three of them on my hands at the moment, but they aren’t making my heart beat faster in the right sort of way. I’m not ready to be held captive yet, I suppose. It’s either that or I’m a confirmed bachelor.”

Soames drank his whisky and shook his head. It was baffling. “Three women. How do you do it? What is the secret?”

Parkes laughed softly. “The secret is to genuinely like them and tell them so.”

“But—”

“But nothing. You tell them what you feel, that’s all. When they’re lovely and make your head spin and your heart beat faster, you say it.”

“How do you find the words?”

“You open your mouth and say them.”

It was beyond him, how Parkes could think it was so effortless. Parkes had no difficulties finding someone to love him, no trouble at all finding people who’d defend him with a punch or let him call on them or receive him late at night. Unlike Soames himself, who’d gone more than half his life before meeting someone who tolerated him. Until now, that was. A little smile crept onto his face. Perhaps he’d learned something. Irene had written him a love letter!

He said, “I suppose. Well. However many women you’ve got, my mother will invite you and make up the number with some cousin or other.”

“Not going to try to talk me into marriage? Every one of you does as you fall victim. It’s inevitable.”

“No,” said Soames, and he was sincere. If he was himself a Benedick reformed, he would not mock Parkes for being a Benedick still; the appetite did indeed alter, and he would not be the one to break quirks and remnants of wit on his friend either before or after.

He smoked with Parkes for a while in silence, and they were both content. They parted at the club door with another of those hearty shoulder claps from Parkes. If Parkes hadn’t done it, he’d have worried. Some day perhaps he wouldn’t twitch, but Parkes seemed never to mind. That was friendship, he supposed. He had a friend. He’d always had.

XII. Dog at Timothy’s

Irene’s reply reached Soames the next morning, on the Wednesday. The porter handed it to him on his way out for his walk east to the City and his office. It was Soames’s perverse pleasure at that moment to hold off from reading it despite his anxious desire to read it, and instead to speculate on what she might have written. He carried it in his coat pocket unopened, all his nerves alight. What had Irene written to him? He ought to have simply gone back into his chambers to read it, but he was restless and in need of the walk, too anxious and jangled to sit still.

He set himself into motion and walked with his head up, briskly, making his way through the City of his youth. It was still a wondrous thing to him to see it like this, full of horses and hansom cabs and gas lamps, no electricity at all. There was no particular order to the streets: there was no need for it, because everything moved slowly. Cabs and people crossing where they wanted, boys running errands, men hawking newspapers and girls selling flowers—London!

It was in this mood that he entered the offices in the Poultry. There he found that his news had filtered through his acquaintance like a splash of watercolour spreading through wet paper. The clerks knew it already, and seemed also to know that his betrothed was a great beauty and that he was to be envied. They congratulated him quietly. Gradman offered his dry congratulations then disappeared mercifully quickly into his father’s office. Soames went into his own office, hung top hat and coat, and settled himself at his desk with Irene’s letter before him. Her usual stationery, her usual handwriting. He took out his letter opener.

His father appeared in his doorway and attempted to get his attention on the matter of New Colliery v Jones, but Soames waved him off. “I’ll come look in ten minutes.”

“What are you up to that you are too busy for this?”

“Irene has written to me, and I should like to read her letter,” said Soames, simply.

His father cast up his eyes and disappeared back into his office without closing the door. Soames slid the letter opener along the edge of the envelope delicately. He was barely aware of Gradman coming by and closing the door as he read. Irene opened as she had before. Her step-mother, she wrote, had been on an excursion to visit a friend in Bournemouth on Monday afternoon, so she’d gone for a walk to get out of the house and take some exercise. It had been a long walk along the coast, and she’d eaten lunch seated on the rocks at the edge of a shingled beach, leading down into a grey and restless sea. She’d seen a skua, which had delighted her. She thought she had mastered the second Brahms rhapsody, which was rather her favourite, and wished to play it for him now that she could bring meaningful interpretation to it. She finished by saying how much she looked forward to seeing him on Saturday so she could do so. Affectionately his, her initials.

And then she added a postscript in which she asked if she might delay until the weekend to answer his question: she wished to consider his face and imagine it with a moustache. Well, that was a reasonable answer. He would continue shaving.

Soames tapped the empty envelope against the desk blotter, thinking. She seemed well. It continued to comfort him to read her handwriting, to hear that she looked forward to seeing him. She spent her time either walking near the sea or playing the piano. He hoped what London offered would compensate for the loss of the sea. It was only Wednesday, but he almost couldn’t bear waiting until Saturday to see her. He had found a good edition of the Mozart piano sonatas, which he hoped would please her, since she had said she had little Mozart. Was that enough of an excuse to travel down immediately? No. He tucked the letter back into its envelope, and the envelope into a pocket of his frock-coat.

Soames went out to talk to his father about whatever it was he wanted. It was a legal case from an important client; nothing of any particular difficulty. Soames gave his advice calmly along with the reasoning he’d include in the brief. He was at a loss trying to remember the barristers of the day to advise engaging, but Gradman rescued him with the suggestion of a name he remembered, which produced a second name from the dusty recesses of his memory. James disagreed with them both. Soames declined to argue about that, so long as the legal argument stood.

“I dare say you’re right on that point, Mr Soames,” said Gradman.

“He often is,” James said. “But I doubt him on this one. Oh! I called round at Timothy’s yesterday, my boy.”

Gradman slipped out the door. Soames made no reply.

James continued. “They’ve heard all about it already, can’t say I know how, somebody will have told them, maybe your mother.”

“I know how it went,” said Soames. “Winifred told Dartie, Dartie told George, and now London knows.”

“You ought to call on them yourself. Get it over with.”

“I suppose I’d better.”

“I shouldn’t talk about the money if I were you.”

Soames looked at the ceiling. “I see no reason why I would talk about money at Timothy’s.”

“It’ll get out.”

“Not because I’ll have told them.”

“They do seem to learn everything somehow. The servants talk, I suppose.”

The servants, and the family, the aunts and the uncles and innumerable cousins: all gravitated towards the drawing room on the Bayswater Road to contribute their information to the family stock exchange and have it weighed and valued and traded around. They had been doing it for as long as Soames had been alive, and they would do it in Winifred’s drawing room on Green Street and in his own home at Mapledurham after the aunts had all passed on. The family business and opinion had its own currency, and there was its nerve centre.

Soames might describe it as an ordeal, but he could not avoid it, and when he was feeling most sentimental would not avoid it: he would miss it when it was gone. He decided to take his father’s advice and endure the first stage of the ordeal straight away. He’d have to repeat it all when Irene joined them in town, but there was no helping it. His family was what it was.

He called round at Timothy’s at tea-time, ready for the questioning in some ways, and not in others: this would be his first time seeing his aunts and uncles since their deaths, and he was not entirely sure what this would do to him. He’d always been closer to his uncle Nicholas than the rest of them, but he had not disliked any of them save Uncle Jolyon. It had more been a matter of distant well-wishes, an awareness that they mattered to his father and that therefore they mattered to him. He’d read his aunt Hester’s diary after her death, and he knew things about her that he would need to pretend not to know now, but these facts made him rather fonder of her than before, rather more sad about what her life might have been.

The only one of them he had to be on guard about his feelings with was Uncle Jolyon, and perhaps this time round they could both keep their tempers and not cause a family rift about nothing at all meaningful in the end, about some house property that he would not build this time. Or perhaps his uncle would continue to dislike him and there would be a row anyway. He couldn’t help that. He would reserve judgement, or at least do his best to hide his judgement. He’d manage so long as he didn’t have to pretend to be civil with Cousin Jo.

In this state of partial unease he stood in the hall in the Bayswater Road, handing his hat and coat to Smither. Everyone in the drawing room upstairs would know his news in advance but would be pretending not to know, and he would have to tell them as if it were news. Further, he would be asked to account for a series of failings imagined and real of his wife-to-be, whom they had not yet met. What a misery this would be! Then he remembered something that made him smile at the maid Smither, which surprised her more than a little.

“Is the dog doing well?” he asked.

“Yes, Mr Soames!” she said, bobbing before him, now smiling back at him. “She’s settled in most happily! She’s with Mrs Small in the drawing room now.”

“Thank you,” he said, and turned to mount the stairs to the drawing room. What had the dog’s name been? He couldn’t remember. Well, surely someone would mention it.

In the drawing room were his three aunts, his uncles Swithin and Jolyon, his cousins Francie and Young Roger, and Mrs Nicholas along with a number of younger Nicholas daughters. Soames greeted them all cordially, including Uncle Jolyon, and with good grace played the part of a young nephew with news that he was holding as a badly-kept secret. He’d never got on with Young Roger, but he could overlook that today.

“What’s this I hear about you, young man?” said his uncle Jolyon.

Swithin chimed in: “Yes, you young rascal, what have you been about?”

“Nothing at all noteworthy,” he said to his father’s twin, with cool detachment. “I am no kind of rascal.” He accepted a cup of tea from his aunt Ann and sat where she indicated, in the seat to her right.

She gave him an arch look, to which he responded with a raised eyebrow. “Soames, dear, we have heard a rumour about you. I should like to discover the truth of it.”

“What rumour is that, Aunt?”

“That you are engaged to be married to a young lady from a quite distant seaside town.”

Soames drank some tea carefully, expressed his pleasure with it without words to Aunt Ann, then said, “I may as well tell you that it is true. I am engaged to be married.”

There was a minor sensation in the room. There had been, if he recalled correctly, wagers that he would remain a bachelor for some years yet, he having been so very uninterested in his mother’s attempts to match-make for him. George had gone in heavily on bachelorhood until the age of thirty, and Soames had been maliciously delighted to find he’d been in debt to Dartie of all people when the news had broken. He supposed George would be out of pocket again. One side of his mouth quirked up.

“Ah! I am delighted to hear the rumour is true!” said Aunt Ann, and tapped him with her fan. “You must tell us all about her.”

“Miss Heron is delightful. She is a most excellent pianist, Conservatoire-trained. And she is quite beautiful.” And at that he flushed in a way that made Uncle Jolyon look at him sharply. So did Aunt Ann; they were the only two in the room perspicacious enough to see past his careful façade of indifference.

Aunt Juley immediately set the little dog down on the floor, and she ran over to sniff Soames’s boots. He’d had dogs in his past life, and he knew what to do with them. He ruffled her ears, and ran his hand along her flank with a gentle pat, and the little Yorkshire Terrier waggled her entire body with pleasure in making his acquaintance. He settled into a gentle scratching along her jaw that had her sneezing out her joy and then snuffling him again. He eyed his aunt Juley with caution. There was no telling what she would say.

“I had heard that you have been most devoted to this young lady,” Aunt Juley said, “taking the train for hours every weekend to see her!”

Soames gave this no answer, but instead rubbed the belly of a pleased and somewhat plump dog.

“I am so very happy for you, Soames,” said Aunt Ann.

“Thank you,” he murmured, to the dog. Then he sat up and resumed drinking his tea before it went cold. It was good tea; the aunts always had good tea, thanks to the attentions of Uncle Jolyon.

Aunt Juley said, “We did hear that she has no money at all, of course, and that your father is—”

“When shall we meet her?” Aunt Ann said, interrupting sharply.

“It is in the hands of my mother and her step-mother,” said Soames, as if butter would not melt in his mouth. “I am looking forward to introducing her to you all.”

“She was trained in France, you said?”

“Yes, Aunt. She spent some time at the Paris Conservatoire, earning her medal.”

“Paris?”

“She speaks French quite fluently.”

This caused a minor flurry, the French being somewhat controversial among the older generation, and generally considered fashionable among the younger. Conversation blew into little side snow-swirls, then gusted onward, to something one of the Nicholas daughters had to say to Aunt Ann. Soames vacated the seat next to his aunt to make way for her, and found himself standing next to his uncles and Young Roger, rather unfortunately. Roger liked Soames about as much as his younger brother George did, only he had none of the wit.

“I hear she’s a pretty little thing,” said Swithin, not that any of them had seen her yet.

Old Jolyon said, “They do say that. You are a most lucky young man if she is as pretty as rumour has it.”

“Rumour is correct,” said Soames. “I scarcely deserve her.”

“Why wouldn’t you deserve her?” Old Jolyon asked, not angrily, but forcefully enough that Soames wanted to take a step back. He did not, however, but stood his ground.

“She is talented and beautiful. She could have found somebody much better than I.”

“I hear she’s got no money,” Young Roger said.

“I hear her father was a professor of some kind,” said Swithin.

“Yes,” said Soames. “Of literature.”

“No money in that,” said Swithin.

“A talented pianist, fine-looking? No money? And she’s to marry you? Let’s hope you haven’t paid too much for her,” Young Roger said. “Can’t be for your charm.”

Soames found his left hand curling into a fist. The memory of what punching felt like came to him. A hand on his arm fell heavy—Uncle Jolyon’s.

“She is musically inclined,” Old Jolyon said. “If she is Conservatoire-trained she must be skilled indeed.”

Soames drew in a careful breath. “Yes, sir, she is. She had ambitions of playing at the concert level,” Soames said between his teeth. The hand remained on his arm. Soames uncurled his fist, and the hand went away. That had been a near thing, nearly a shocking loss of control.

“I am very happy for you, then,” his uncle said. “Congratulations to you, young man.”

“Thank you, sir,” said Soames, and he looked at his uncle Jolyon with some puzzlement. His uncle didn’t entirely hate him, or he’d have let him punch Roger. Perhaps punching George would be more satisfying, not that George had done anything to him this time or was even present. Soames had always been annoyed by Young Roger even more than George until later in life, come to think of it. And his uncle had been—his uncle had prevented him from causing a ruckus and a family mess just now, for surely Young Roger’s offence would have been overlooked if Soames had transgressed by striking him in Aunt Ann’s drawing room. Uncle Jolyon had prevented it. Did Soames have to re-estimate him, too?

Old Jolyon had not yet offended Soames. The man had nothing to do with his grand-daughter’s future choices, and less still with his son’s behaviour after his death. His uncle’s behaviour in leaving money to Irene, in that past that would never be, now—that Soames could understand, and therefore not condemn. Why let the family have a rift again? Why risk this man reconciling with that fellow again? And at that his conscience tweaked him. If Irene genuinely loved him, he need fear nothing. And if she loved that fellow instead, he had his oath to live up to.

Uncle Jolyon put a hand on his shoulder—Soames winced and then steadied—and turned him away from Young Roger and Swithin for a word.

“Come, tell me about her,” said his uncle, and drew him further away. Soames let it happen. He could feel the echoes of the anger in his blood, and knew he needed to let himself cool for a moment.

“That’s right, steady,” Old Jolyon said, in a low voice. “Don’t give him the satisfaction. You seem to think highly of her.”

“Yes, sir.”

Jolyon’s fierce gaze held him for a long moment, and Soames could not look away. At last his uncle said, “Very well, then. Ignore that young fool. You’re a better man than he.”

“Thank you.”

“Don’t let your temper get the better of you. You sulk too much, boy. Your young lady won’t appreciate that.”

Soames felt his temper flare and then subside again, tamped by the wisdom of years. He had sulked too much. He would indeed have benefited from keeping it in check. “I should like you to meet her,” was all he said in reply. What was he supposed to feel in this moment?

His uncle gave him a sidelong look, then nodded in some kind of approval. “You were good with Juley’s dog.”

“I like dogs.” Soames looked back to see the little dog, whose name he still had not learned, running about, snuffling at the feet of various guests.

“You’re not as bad as I thought you,” Jolyon said. “You have a heart after all, when you’re not being a lawyer.”

“When I am a man.” Soames looked at the floor.

“A bad business, the one you’re in, that requires you not to have a heart.”

Soames opened his mouth to object to this, then closed it again. He knew what his uncle was talking about without seeming to talk about it. There was no explaining it to people on the opposite side of an action. There never would be. If one party wanted a divorce and the other didn’t, there was only pain. If one side was flaunting infidelity and the other wanted an end because of it, there was only pain. He understood. The pain was something he had lived.

He said, “Divorces are difficult to handle. I’d rather not. But better to keep them in the family than let them out.”

“I suppose you’re right.”

That fellow’s first wife Frances was dead, now, and he would not be betraying any confidences by saying this. “Uncle Jolyon, she was bitter. She wanted to punish him. The wisdom of the action did not matter to her.”

His uncle looked at him extremely sharply. Soames met his gaze and held his ground—he too had the gravity of years to bring to this contest. Old Jolyon said, “I dare say you are right there. You were only acting as your client wished.”

“Sometimes my advice goes unheeded. Sometimes I am wrong.”

“And in this case?”

Soames continued to hold his uncle’s gaze, unyielding. “She was very clear about what she wanted. My advice was not at issue.”

“Humph. What are we to make of it all?”

Soames shook his head. “I can’t say. It was a bad business. At least your granddaughter is with you now.” Not that he’d ever liked June or she him, even when she was a child, but it did not matter: she was not with her father, who was an immoral influence. He had nothing good to say about this man’s son and never would, not that he would say it to his uncle’s face.

Uncle Jolyon lifted his impressive chin, appraising him, then nodded. “Come round to Stanhope Gate some evening, when you’ve the time. Tell me about this young lady of yours without all this lot listening. I should like to hear you talk. And when she’s in town, I will have you both to dinner.”

“Thank you, sir. I shall call.”

His uncle offered him a hand. Soames took it and the handshake was over before he quite understood it had begun. And then his uncle had moved beside the aunts and was saying his farewells to them.

Soames didn’t know what to make of this. The invitation was unprecedented to him. His uncle had always been disgruntled with him for reasons he hadn’t fully understood, at least until the hostilities had burst into the open. He could not object; his father had been hurt by the feud, which he had not understood. Soames himself would do nothing to cause it to flare into being this time round. And he could at least find some kind of fellow-feeling for his uncle in their shared experiences as family head, as keeper of the family soul and burdens. He’d been the one to give the advice to the third and fourth generations, when they’d needed it and had the wisdom to ask. He understood his uncle in a way few did. Was this the source of the dislike? Had his uncle hoped his own son would do this? But Young Jolyon had always had an ironic mocking distance from the family. He’d never cared for them the way Soames had. So why?

It was a puzzle.

Soames left soon afterwards with his duty call done but his feelings uneasy. He’d enjoyed seeing Aunt Ann, but his encounter with his uncle Jolyon had disturbed him. How many family relationships would he end up re-assessing? How many friendships? Would the strain never end?

He hadn’t thought about Frances in years. At the time he had approved of her decision not to divorce Jolyon: it kept property in the family. The upshot was that his uncle Jolyon had what his father had not: a grandson of his name, but the boy was disowned. If Soames had philandered and fathered a son out of wedlock, would his parents have accepted the boy? He, of course, could not have done it unless in extremis, and they would have known that. Had Young Jolyon been in extremis? Frances had seemed to hate him. Soames hadn’t considered this motive at the time.

Well, he would do things properly this time and not put himself into the position he’d been in before, so trapped and desperate that he’d thought of that option himself. He would give his father everything he wanted while he was alive to enjoy it. He and Irene would have the son he’d so longed for. The thought made him feel a secret happiness, and he returned to his chambers eager to write to her.

Soames wrote to her that he’d been round to break the news to his aunts. He dithered about trying to describe it to her: ought he? Was it the kind of thing she’d want to read about? Or should he stay with safer topics like how he’d looked at a Corot painting of Fontainebleau at a dealer’s that had moved him and made him want to show it to her? In the end he decided to write about both the painting and his tea at Timothy’s. He tried to find words for what it felt like to be quizzed by his family about his engagement—so many aunts and uncles and cousins, all gossiping about each other’s lives, with almost nothing left undiscussed or unexamined. It was both comforting, in that uncles and aunts were there to sympathise and advise, and suffocating, in that nothing that one did was unknown. They all wanted to meet her, of course, and that would be a trial.

He then did his best to find words to describe how he felt about being so far away from her. It was easier to find them when he was not next to her, aware of her presence in ways that made his pulse race. It was easier to say that he missed her and wished for her smile and her conversation, and easier to write that he was anxious to learn when she and her step-parents would be in London. He concluded by telling her that he’d asked his friend Parkes to be his groomsman, and had been humbled when Parkes accepted. He looked forward to introducing her to him.

He posted the letter on his way to his club for dinner. He was trying to eat normally, or whatever normally had been for himself at this age. He did rather more walking at twenty-five than he had been doing at seventy, no matter how active a man he’d been, punting about and fishing and whatnot. It took far more to tire himself out, so he ought to be hungrier than he was. Love! Love had made him thin. He had to try to feed himself up again on club dinners. He wasn’t likely to hide his ribs rapidly, but he’d slowly go back up to his ordinary weight, eleven stone. He hadn’t risen above that in his life, but he’d been below it several times, because of love and heartbreak and war.

Soames went to the smoking room after and had a drink, but Parkes wasn’t there. Soames sat peacefully enough, for solitude was not uncomfortable to him, and absorbed his drink slowly, thinking over the strange week since his death, or his dream of death if that was what it had been, or since the moment Fate had nudged him to choose differently. Whatever it was, he felt that he could imagine happiness ahead of himself. He could imagine Irene saying those three words to him straight out, the ones he so longed to hear from her. She was so close to saying them. He needs must keep listening to her and give her what she wanted, not what some other woman might want. Arrange everything perfectly for her, as always, because that was what he was good at, what satisfied him. The right house, decorated as she wished. The trousseau she deserved. The gifts she wanted, not the ones other women might prize. Everything perfectly managed.

And that reminded him, he ought to find out where his mother was on arranging their visit to London. Had she written yet? He needed to call round and talk to her tomorrow, perhaps dine with them again if they were at home. An anxiety seized him, an urgency he could do nothing with. He wanted everything to move faster than it was moving. He reassured himself he’d see her again in three days, and the thought soothed him. He’d see her. He’d hold her hand. All would be well.

XIII. Soames buys a Corot

In the morning, Soames found his father in his office at the first moment he could, and broached the topic of the settlement. James pushed his chair back from his desk and paced in a way Soames might have recognised if he had ever watched himself pace in a mirror. Soames composed himself to be his calmest and most solid, hands behind his back, and merely watched his father pacing, himself unmoved and unmoving.

James came to a halt eventually, rubbed his nose, and sniffed. He said, “Well, we might as well have done with it. Do you know what they’re likely to bring in?”

“I do not. We’ll have to ask. I expect it to be a token amount.”

“I told you how it—”

“Father.”

James resumed pacing back and forth along the window behind his desk, tugging at his whiskers. Soames waited for him to decide what he would fret about.

James eventually came to rest again—this time beside his swivel-chair—and sighed the sigh of a much put-upon man. “What is it you’re thinking?”

“Five thousand. I can manage that without difficulty. It’ll put her around one-fifty, and she has another fifty in an annuity from her father. I’ve committed to this amount with her step-mother.”

“You need only match what they put in.” His father was genuinely ill at ease, not fretting for the sake of fretting. Soames’s heart twinged, but he could not relent.

He said, “I am not doing that. I’ve already told you what I’ve committed to, and I expect you to live up to it for me. I want her to be cared for.”

“What if she—”

“She won’t. It’s a reasonable amount of money, and I don’t want to look like I can’t afford to give her anything. Or that I’m a miser.”

That was an argument James would yield to, and indeed he yielded. He shook his head and folded himself up into his swivel-chair like a stork folding itself into its nest. “Well, I’d better start drafting it, so I have something to show him. The usual language, I suppose. Will he know the first thing about what it means?”

“Not unless he’s thought to engage his own solicitor. I’ll send him to Chalmers if he hasn’t.”

“That’s a bit—”

“He won’t know to object, and Chalmers will take care of him even if he knows nothing.”

“Trustees?”

“Uncle Nicholas and Bustard,” said Soames, promptly.

“That stick in the mud?” James meant their partner in the firm, not his younger brother.

“Safe as houses.”

“True enough. She has an annuity, you say?”

“Yes. I suppose that’ll come in, won’t it. I’ll want that money included.” And at the expression on his father’s face, “Look, I won’t have them saying I took her money and then wasn’t generous with her. You’ll feel differently once you meet her.”

“So you keep saying. They don’t have to know anything.”

“This family ends up learning everything.”

“They shan’t learn it from me.”

Soames shook his head. They always ended up learning it somehow. “Well. It’s all decided, then.”

And to put punctuation at the end of the conversation he turned. He walked to the office door, determined to give his father no room to argue about the amount.

“Soames, my boy.”

Soames stopped with his hand on the door, and when his father did not speak, turned to look at him. James was serious, and Soames knew to take him seriously. To signal as much, he came all the way back into the room and sat down in the client’s chair in front of his father’s desk.

It was a comfortable chair, solid, oak and leather, reassuringly stable. His father’s desk and indeed all of the furnishings in this room were the same. You may trust us, they said. We are money and security incarnate; we know what you are, the soul of propertied England; we will safeguard what matters most to you. A touch behind the times, to Soames’s eye; he would refresh his own office in another year or two so that he himself would signal energy as well as solidity. But here he sat, now, in the chair before his father’s desk, waiting for him to speak. He hadn’t felt a need to soothe himself earlier, but he did now; he clasped his hands together and touched thumb to the surface of his signet ring. What was the matter?

James said, “I don’t want you overcommitting yourself.”

Oh. This again. “I’m doing well enough, Father.”

“You’ve certainly been working hard. Gradman says you’re like a man possessed.”

Soames raised his eyes heavenward. “Gradman exaggerates.”

“I’m not committing you until I’ve had a word with the fellow and seen what he’s about. I know what you’re putting in for her sake. I shan’t write a single word of this until I’ve seen where he is. Usually I have to put it to the groom to put things into settlement, but this time—”

“He has no obligation. She’s not his daughter. He might demand something from us in return for anything he puts in.”

James was thinking seriously. He often did not appear to be a serious man, or a thinker, but he had not reached his position without being capable of both and also of the needed discretion. James ruffled both whiskers at once, and made a sound Soames knew to mean assent. “Legal services?”

“I’d rather see the back of him.”

James gave him a piercing look. “You really dislike the chap.”

“I do. No amount of capital is worth it. I’ll make more in a year.”

“You’re usually right about these things.”

“The sooner Mother invites them up, the sooner you’ll see for yourself.”

“You don’t have to keep saying it. You’ve made your point. Well, come round for dinner. Your mother feels better when she sees you.”

“Of course,” Soames murmured. What his father meant was that he felt better, but it hardly mattered. Soames would have come anyway. He stood up again. He was going to get what he wanted, but his father would need to see for himself first.

James rubbed at his nose and sighed. “I don’t know why I’m trying to talk you out of it. You know your own mind. You always have. Stubborn boy, but level-headed. Always two steps ahead of where everyone else is.”

Soames said nothing to this, for anything he said would bring him into impossible territory. He would likely be three steps ahead now, thanks to the patience of unnatural experience, the eerie hand of Nemesis. His father, however, had only begun his jeremiad, for he had got his running start and showed no sign of stopping.

“And here you are now, cap over the windmill for this girl. Well, I suppose it’s good you’re settling down. Your mother was beginning to worry about you. You wouldn’t look twice at any of the girls she introduced you to. Wouldn’t look once at most of them, she said. Wouldn’t talk at dinner parties, wouldn’t call on anyone—”

Soames stared at the ceiling. He remembered this phase of his mother’s campaign. Those girls had all been stale and flat in comparison with Irene, no ambition, no spark. She’d fenced with him on that first meeting, told him he was wrong and made her point stick, and he’d had to concede she was right. How many of those girls his mother introduced to him had done that? None of them. This was, to his surprise, why he hadn’t looked twice. And why Annette, for all her beauty, had not heated anything other than his body. He’d been half-aware of this, but it hadn’t struck home fully until he’d talked to Parkes how important it had been.

He came back to the present to find his father staring at him. “Well. You certainly weren’t listening to a word I said.”

“Sorry, Father, something you said reminded me of a letter I need to write to Fortescue, that fellow in Brighton with the four daughters.”

James blew out a breath. “Oh, that chap. Well, don’t let me detain you. There’s a good fee waiting for you there.” James made a face that indicated a worried kind of satisfaction.

“Before I go—has Mother written to Irene’s step-parents yet?” Soames said.

“How should I know?”

Soames sighed and cast up his eyes. “She’ll have told you.”

“She said something about writing earlier.”

“Right. I’ll ask her at dinner.”

“In a tearing hurry, I take it.”

“Merely making sure it all goes properly. As you know I always do.”

James waved him off, and Soames went back into his office to work. Around lunchtime he left and went to the dealer where he’d seen the Corot—not Dumetrius, his long-time cordial enemy, but another dealer—and looked at it again. There was something about that gnarled tree at the centre of it, the girl reclining with the book. The brushwork pleased him, the muddy banks of the stream below the trees, the restraint of the colours. He pulled out his loupe and looked more closely at the brushwork, the pigments, the canvas: it was genuine, though he had not doubted that from his first glance at it. This was the advantage of having had a lifetime of studying the work of the real Corot already. He put the loupe back in his pocket, made two mental calculations, then went to greet the dealer and engage in a pleasurable contest of wills. He came out rather better than he’d expected. The dealer had, he thought, underestimated him because of his apparent youth. Whatever the reason, he wrote a cheque and his second Corot was on the way to his rooms, to lean against the wall and be gazed at longingly in his free moments, and be shown to Irene some day after their marriage.

She’d like it, he thought. He’d enjoy telling her about it, hanging it on the wall and showing her his taste. She perhaps would not care that part of his reputation was choosing work that appreciated in value. He chose good work, work that outlasted mere trends, work that had something timeless even if he’d selected it when it had been deeply unfashionable. It was all for her, everything he did, from making money to buying beautiful things. Well, not all of it. He’d always liked having beautiful things around him to look at. Beauty was in the eye of the beholder, they said. He was a very specific beholder, with very specific taste.

He returned to the office without lunch but with a sense of deep satisfaction, and buckled down to the work of making money for his upcoming marriage.

When asked that evening, Emily reassured Soames immediately that he was worrying about nonsense, though with some amused exasperation.

“I’m sure I don’t know what the fuss is about,” she said. “I wrote to her step-mother yesterday. I’ve asked when it’ll be most convenient for them to visit us up here, and told her I know a most darling hotel for them, just the thing.”

Soames had known that his mother certainly would write to Mrs Lomax, because it would be a serious breach of manners not to, and that she would certainly do so promptly, but nonetheless his relief on hearing this was enormous. She’d done it. Why was he fretting so? There was no good reason at all.

Dining with his parents made him feel better as much as it did them, he did confess. No need to chivvy them or deliver news to them this time. He could simply sit and hear the news from his mother about the family, or what somebody had said about his engagement, or exactly how much money George was said to have lost to Dartie in the bet, and how much George claimed to have gained from Eustace. Apparently George had been playing both sides, and Eustace had bet against Soames marrying at all. The more fool he. Soames was amused to learn George had not been out of pocket after all. James disapproved of the entire business, but Emily had a mischievous side that enjoyed it, especially since her son was marrying at a good, respectable age for a young man to marry. She did spend more of the dinner questioning him about Irene than he was quite comfortable with, but at least he had all the answers ready to hand: what she liked best at dinner, which flowers she preferred, what colours she looked well in, and another dozen questions about things that he suspected Irene would find slightly absurd. Not that he minded his mother asking. She wanted to know so that she might make Irene comfortable during her stay. Emily did so want everyone around her to be comfortable.

Soames wondered rather how his parents had managed to produce him. Winifred he understood; she was clearly a Forsyte and a Golding at the same time, both sensible and a martyr to fashion. How had they raised him, though, this uncomfortable, unsociable son of theirs? He’d never managed to work out what was wrong with him, not through his whole life. At least now he had the self-command to hide it better; he’d only got through his youth by keeping the world at a safe distance with his calculated sneer. It had cost him. Sneering less and masking himself better was a less lonely path.

Despite this moment of gloomy self-reflection, dinner left him contented and soothed. He went to his chambers afterwards to discover a fresh letter from Irene, arrived with the last post. The Corot had also been delivered while he was out. He unwrapped it and propped it up against the wall to look at it. He did love it. He decided to replace the Watteau with it, just for the change. One painting down, the other painting up. The Watteau had been on the wall over his writing desk where he could see it when he sat and thought, and he liked that the Corot was there now.

He poured himself whisky and soda and sat at his desk to read Irene’s latest letter to him, Corot before him, and to think about how to reply. Was he replying too hastily to her letters? Was there any such thing as too hastily? She seemed happy to get his letters, and happy to write to him.

Irene wrote that she had been practising the Brahms rhapsodies every day, and felt they were different enough from her previous repertoire that they had improved her technique. They were wonderful pieces: Clara Schumann had recognised Brahms’s genius immediately, and now she understood why.

Soames had begun to understand how important Schumann was to Irene. It was odd to him to realise that he had lived four years with her in his first go at life, and never known this at all, never discussed Clara Schumann with her even once after their first meeting when she’d been playing that love song and he’d walked in on her.

He read on. Irene had enjoyed his descriptions of his tea with his aunts, and even more what he wrote about the Corot. She was most grateful for his most recent gift of music, and only wished she were able to find something for him that pleased him as deeply as this pleased her. She wanted to return his generosity somehow, but did not know how. She had walked in the same direction again, and seen what she thought might be the same skua again, hunting gulls, but it was difficult to be sure.

Oh, if only she understood that anything she did at all was enough. Writing to him was enough.

He took out pen and paper. How to say what he wanted? There were so many things he might write, but he didn’t know what she would think of him if he wrote them.

My dear Irene, The Corot now hangs on the wall before me. I shall be able to show it you some day, and you shall tell me what you think when you see it. I have not yet had the opportunity to show you the paintings I like, but I hope to do so when you visit London with your step-parents, which I am told is quite soon. The gift I should like most is that you play for me whatever music I have brought you and tell me what you think of it, and help me understand it, perhaps. I cannot promise I will, but I promise to try. I had to consult a bird-book to learn about the skua. I can imagine you on your rock delighted by so fierce and solitary a bird. Do you often watch for birds on your walks? I am happy to learn that varying your repertoire is beneficial to your technique, for I have more sheet music to bring you then, including something I am told is quite new that you might enjoy. I shall not spoil the surprise. Most sincerely yours, SF

Perhaps she would tell him more about herself. He’d clearly known nothing at all about her before.

XIV. Irene looks at Turner

A little over a week later, on a Tuesday in late April, Soames stood on a platform at Waterloo station watching the express train from Bournemouth arrive, carrying passengers from various surrounding seaside towns, Lymington included. Irene and her step-parents were due on this train, and he wanted to be sure they found their way through this maze of a station. His upper lip was still bare: Irene had pronounced herself uncertain about a moustache on his specific face, after an enjoyable period of close inspection.

He stood at the way out, watching for them in the small crowd, and spotted Irene almost immediately, smiling at a porter doffing his cap to her. He greeted the Lomaxes with cool courtesy and gave Irene a little smile. The porter who’d doffed his cap had their luggage, following behind. Soames gave the man instructions and a generous tip, and they made their way through the station to the street and a growler. The cabbie strapped their luggage on top and they clambered inside to make their way north, to the Bayswater Road and their hotel in a square just off it.

Irene gazed out the streaky cab window at the city as the cab wound its way slowly through crowded streets. Soames sat next to her inside the cab, pleasurably close enough to her to feel her warmth. He watched her with a secret smile. She hadn’t seen enough of London yet; he had a list of things to show her immediately, and a much longer list of things to show her slowly over time.

“Was the train tolerable?” Soames asked the three of them, but looked for Irene’s answer.

Irene said, “I have just learned what you have endured every weekend coming down to see me. I hadn’t realised the journey was so long.”

“You didn’t?” Soames said. He cast a glance at Mrs Lomax sitting across from him, who might have been able to tell Irene, but hadn’t.

Mrs Lomax said merely, “Soames dear has been quite a dedicated suitor, hasn’t he, Irene? Seven hours in a train every weekend to see you!”

Soames’s finger sought his ring under his glove, but of course could not find it. He set his jaw.

Irene said, “He told me he would have endured the trip to Bradford for me, but I think I should prefer a shorter trip.” She was looking at him when she said it, and he realised that she was not mocking him at all, but was instead newly aware that his feelings had been deep indeed for some time. There were times when he still braced for her former cold treatment; he supposed he would eventually learn that warmth was what she offered him naturally now.

He said merely, “Well, I am glad you are in town for a bit, and neither of us need travel that length of time.”

“It is most kind of your mother to offer her hospitality to Irene like this,” said Mrs Lomax.

“My mother is looking forward to meeting you all.”

“And we her, aren’t we, Willy?”

“Oh yes, certainly, what?” Lomax was being jovial, if somewhat distracted by a notebook he was jotting in for some reason. He had business of some kind, Soames had been told.

Soames changed the subject. He turned to Irene. “Did you bring any music to play?” he said.

“I have! An entire valise full of sheet music along with my Conservatoire books.”

“The tuner has been round to make sure my parents’ piano is in good condition for you. I don’t know anything about pianos, but it is playable and in good tune. Or so the fellow said.”

“What’s its make?”

“Broadwood. My father saw me fussing over it and he assured me it’s good English workmanship.”

“It is,” said Irene.

Soames made a deep, thoughtful sound at the way she’d said that. It wasn’t entirely approving, he thought, but he had no idea why. Wasn’t one piano the same as any other? Some of them seemed absurdly over-decorated, but otherwise there were two sorts: the upright kind, and the grand pianos that his parents and Irene herself had.

Irene said nothing further about it, though, and soon enough they were at the Bayswater Road, and turning off onto the little square where their hotel was. Emily had directed them to one of the many small respectable family hotels in the area, modest, entirely within their means, and hard by Park Lane. Thoughtful as ever, his mother was. Soames was beginning to appreciate her quiet scheming in a manner he never had before.

He alit from the cab and helped the ladies out. The porter saw to the luggage and Soames waited downstairs while the Lomaxes settled their things. A few minutes later the four of them came back down to the pavement.

Mrs Lomax said, “Irene, dear, we are off to meet Soames’s parents. We shall leave you two to amuse yourselves until tea-time.”

They watched her step-parents set off along the pavement eastward. It was an easy walk from the hotel to his parents’ home, and the spring weather was cooperating. Soames and Irene looked at each other, and Soames found himself shy in the moment. There was so much to show her! Where ought he to start?

“What would you like to do?” he asked.

“Perhaps we could walk in Hyde Park, or go to a gallery?” Irene said to him.

“Or both,” said Soames. “It’s clear just now. We can walk in the Park, and then take a cab to the National Gallery.”

“That sounds wonderful. I have not been in the Park since I was a little girl.”

He offered his arm to her, and they set off.

She was on his arm perfectly, hand just inside his elbow, not clinging, but he could feel gentle pressure now and then which meant she was thinking about him. They did not talk. Soames couldn’t think of anything to say: he was walking in the Park with Irene on his arm on a sunny spring day, in London at its grubbiest, on its way up towards its wealthiest, with all his aunts and uncles alive, his parents alive. She’d agreed to marry him willingly, had told him she was falling in love with him, had written affectionate letters to him. He was walking through the Park with the loveliest woman in London on his arm. His heart was going to burst if anything happened to make him happier than this.

The air was fresh, a little cool. Sheep wandered through the open fields, grazing. The grass was quite green; rainwater had pooled in muddy low spots. They stuck to the gravel paths, to avoid the mud. London in spring was both lovely and damp.

“Are you minding the walk?” he said.

“No, I need it after that time on the train. You did that every weekend!”

“Yes.”

“I didn’t think about what it meant that you were coming down from London. I thought you were staying on the weekends because you liked the sea air.”

“I went down for you.”

“And took me to concerts, which you didn’t care for in the least.”

“And endured your mockery when you accused me of falling asleep.”

“Which you did not, did you. You were thinking the entire time. Watching me and thinking.”

“Dreaming.”

“What of?”

“Very simple things, usually. You turning to smile at me. Holding hands with you stealthily, right there at the concert. What might happen if I confessed my love at that moment. Sometimes small things like sitting at night with you fireside, reading together. Sometimes—”

“Sometimes what?”

“Kissing you. Or our wedding day.”

“I haven’t thought that far ahead yet,” Irene said. “Or even when it will be.”

“Six months? More? We need time to take and decorate a house to live in for the first few years.”

“Where, do you think?”

“Undoubtedly somewhere around the Park, likely south of it, though where exactly I don’t know yet. I must find some place where the houses are good, the leases are affordable for us, and you approve of the location. I have taken stock of my position, and I know what I can manage while giving you a cook and two servants. I don’t think I can manage a lady’s maid for you, I’m afraid.”

“I hadn’t dreamed of having any of that, never mind a lady’s maid.”

“There are things you won’t have to do on your own any more. Dresses. Your hair.”

He remembered learning what a business women’s hair was early in his marriage with Irene, in that first life. He also remembered what it was like seeing her for the first time with her hair down, wearing nothing, and he immediately tucked that memory far back into the corner of his mind until he was completely alone and could savour it safely.

“My step-mother seems to have her hands quite full managing a cook and one maid.”

“Her servants are not very good. You and my mother will interview for our servants after the house is ready, a few weeks before the wedding.”

“I can manage engaging them on my own.”

Soames said, very gently, “Irene, my mother knows far more about this business than you or I do. I would seek her advice if I were doing it on my own. She has been wanting to see me married for a long time. She’ll want any excuse to fuss and make things easy for us.”

“Oh, that’s—I am sorry. I don’t mean to let my pride get in the way.”

“The next few months will be madness, I think. We’ll be at our limit. Finding a house, furnishing it, decorating it—”

Irene said, tentatively, “Would we be able to have a piano?”

Soames came to a dead stop on the path and turned towards her. “I would never dream of depriving you of a piano. Never! Do you hear?”

Irene would not meet his eyes.

Soames got his voice under control, but he was still heated. “Anything you want that is in my power you may have. I know you need a piano to live. Of course we shall have one!”

“Soames. I meant only to ask if we could afford it.”

Soames hid his face behind his hand for a moment. “Irene. My apologies. That was said far too strongly.”

“Soames, I am the one to apologise. Since my father died it’s been—I haven’t had anyone who paid the least attention, and it’s so strange to suddenly have you. You’re so much the opposite of my step-mama. She tried to stop me going to the Conservatoire because of the cost. This is so strange, to have you already thinking of what I should want.”

“There is nothing to apologise for, save me raising my voice.”

“I feel at a disadvantage. I want to give you gifts as you give me and I can’t. I don’t know what you like, except paintings, and I can’t buy those.”

Soames breathed, letting that strange spike of feeling ease inside himself. He felt like an utter fool, having lost his control over himself over something so absurd. Such a foolish thing to get hot over. His emotions were so strong, from passion to anger to love. His body kept betraying him. But—there was something else here. Irene didn’t understand how her financial position was about to change. Should he tell her? He had always avoided telling his wives anything about how much money he had. He’d merely spent money on them. Buy the dresses, he’d said. Get the summer frocks.

No. That was not what he wanted to tell Irene now. What did he want from her?

He said, very quietly, “I liked the pressed daffodils. And your letters. I re-read them nearly every night.”

“You do?” He nodded, almost shamefacedly, but she smiled at him. “I can write letters.”

“As often as you like.”

“Should I write from the hotel?”

“Please. And—I like you playing for me.”

“It would be my pleasure.”

“But Irene—”

“Yes?”

“The thing I wish for most is you. Your company. Your conversation. Your affection.” That last word was difficult to say, but he said it.

“You may have that as well,” Irene said, very softly. “Now, shall we continue on to this gallery? I would like you to show me paintings and tell me what they mean to you. I should like you to tell me everything, the way I talk to you about music.”

“I think I can do that.”

She took his arm gently. Soames touched her fingers where they curled around his elbow. They would be indoors without gloves later, and he would be able to touch her, and he would apologise again. Irene smiled up at him. “Dear Soames, how much further is it?”

“We’re nearly to Hyde Park Corner.” She’d called him dear!

With that spinning in his head, Soames led her down towards the corner, and the end of Park Lane, where they could hail a cab and head to the National Gallery in Trafalgar Square. Turner had left the Nation his paintings when he’d died, and quite a number of them were on display in rooms specially built for them. Soames had spent hours here looking at them when the fancy took him, as well as whatever else was on display when it changed. There was one particular collection of watercolours he wanted to show her. He led her directly to it, bypassing many other national treasures. Were the paintings he’d left to the Nation here, in that future he’d never see, where Fleur and Michael were mourning him? He hoped they were. More people ought to look at them.

He led Irene directly to the Barry Rooms, and then to a particular painting of Venice in the early morning that he wanted her to see. He loved Turner, especially his watercolours. He had seen this painting perhaps a dozen times before and never tired of it. He stopped, and looked at her.

“You’ve led me past many paintings,” she said.

“Yes. I want to start by showing you this one. Stand about here. I should like you to simply look at it. The colours. The shapes. What do you see? What do you think about?”

He stepped back himself alongside her and looked once again. He hadn’t stood in this specific space, looking at this painting, since before the War. He smiled to himself. It was as he had remembered it.

After some minutes, Irene spoke quietly. “Tell me what you see.”

Soames stared at the painting through narrowed eyes and thought for a moment. How to begin? “There are two ways I look at paintings. One way is to look at its technique. How did the painter accomplish it?”

He beckoned her closer, so she could look at the paper itself.

“Watercolours are difficult, because time matters. The paint doesn’t stay wet for very long. Turner would layer on the pigment in washes, one colour into another, wet into wet, to get the sky and that water. Then he’d lift the pigment off again with a clean brush or a rag, to get that transparency, and those sharp edges. Sometimes he would use his fingers. He’d overpaint sometimes, with lighter colours, like the white in the highlights of the water. The masts of the boats might be last, with a smaller brush with less water in it, or the edge of a larger one.”

He pointed carefully, without touching. “There.”

Irene leaned in and looked at where he was pointing, with concentration. “I see. The pigment looks thicker. Is that the word?”

“It’s a fine word. What he did for any particular watercolour depends on when he painted it. He changed over time. And techniques with oils are another thing altogether. The brushwork can leave a much more visible trace in oils, and this is itself part of the work.”

Soames looked at Irene anxiously to see if he’d said too much, because he could go on about this topic, but she was now looking very carefully at the reflections in the water under the tower.

She turned to him. “You said two ways.”

“My other way is to look at its composition: colours, shapes. Does it please my eye? I can’t explain it very well. I’m not the sort of man who writes essays about art.”

“Could you explain this one painting, perhaps?”

Soames touched gloved fingers to his lips, and considered the question.

“It’s the colours for this, and the contrasts. Look at the water, rose and blue and so perfectly still. The sky is in contrast, yellow with dawn. Then there are those dark spikes of masts against it, the buildings catching the light. It’s so delicate and perfectly observed. Sea, morning, sailboats. The reflection of sky on water. I can almost hear it, seagulls and water. Salt in the air. It’s a moment in time that likely never was, and certainly will never be again. A Venice I can never know, caught for all time in this painting, one man’s eye and skill capturing something of this moment forever lost yet forever preserved. So beautiful. So untouchable.”

“I think I begin to understand,” she said, quietly. “It is about observation.”

“Ruskin said Turner didn’t paint things as they were, but painted their true nature.”

“A moment in time, in spirit if not reality.”

He nodded at her, genuinely pleased. Perhaps they might find a way to speak to each other through this. They stood together a little longer, looking at a Venice that was yet never was.

Irene stirred. “When are we to meet them at the hotel?” she said.

He pulled out his pocket watch and looked at the time. “Bother,” he murmured. “We need to return immediately.” They made their way out of the gallery and to the street, where he hailed a cab. He handed her into it, and sat next to her, arm in arm, perhaps a little improperly but not scandalously. That had been a lovely walk, and a lovely time in the gallery.

“I should like to do that again,” Irene said to him. “Another painter you like, perhaps. You mentioned John Crome?”

“One of the English school. We might go to the National Gallery again and walk through until we see something I want to talk about.”

“That would be marvellous.” She pressed his arm and smiled at him. That was sincere. He felt a flood of warmth rush through him. It was truly pleasant to share what he thought about paintings with her. Why had he never done it before?

The cab made its slow way north up Park Lane to the Bayswater Road, and then to the little square where their hotel was.

“I am truly sorry about raising my voice earlier,” he said.

“Soames, I have accepted your apology. Please don’t let this continue to trouble you.”

“Thank you. I—well. I will see you at dinner.”

He told the cab to wait, saw her to the door of her hotel, and then climbed back in for his club. He wanted tea, and he wanted not to talk to anybody. His mother probably wanted him at home to talk over meeting her step-parents, but he was too overwhelmed by the day to manage it.

He sat in a window for tea and cake and solitary comfort. Parkes was not in the club just then. He’d seen Parkes several times since their evening smoking together, but he was usually in the club later than tea-time. Soames was relieved not to have to talk to Parkes, if he were honest. He wanted to mull this over. He’d made only the one mistake all day, he thought. He’d been upset not with her, but by the idea of depriving her of something; he’d told her how much her letters mattered to him; he’d shown her Turner. On the whole, it was a good start to her visit. He would need to stay in closer control of himself, and remember that she didn’t know how much her circumstances were about to change.

At seven-twenty he was at Park Lane, the first to arrive for dinner. His father drew him aside in the entry hall and gave him a grim look.

“Don’t say you told me so, but you did. This fellow fancies himself a businessman but he’s weak. Isn’t even aware he’s negotiating for her. At least his wife knows. She’s the one who’ll put him up to something.”

“I shouldn’t try to get anything from him.”

“No, I shan’t. You’re right about seeing the back of him.”

That was the end of the conversation: the others arrived in quick succession—Winifred and Dartie, then the Lomaxes on time to the minute. Irene was introduced to everyone, while Soames stood back and watched, hands behind his back where no one could see his thumb fidgeting with his signet ring. Irene was, of course, charming to them all.

Emily took Irene’s arm and led her into the drawing-room, with the rest of them following behind. “Now, dear, tell me what Soames showed you this afternoon. A whole afternoon at the National Gallery—it must have been lovely.”

Irene said, “We looked at one painting.”

“My goodness, only one?” That was Mrs Lomax.

“Only one, and we spent quite a long time looking at it and talking about it.”

“That sounds exactly like Soames,” said Emily.

There was amusement all around; Soames was immune to it. It was his odd hobby, and he could not expect his family to understand why he did what he did. Irene however, seemed not to have minded at all, but instead to have had exactly the experience she expected. That was good.

The dinner-bell rang, and the couples assembled in the order Emily had arranged for them, with quiet words to them all while they were conversing. The trouble with formal dinners was that he could not take Irene in to dinner for a single one, nor would he ever be close enough to speak to her during them; the advantage was that he could look at her in evening dress and watch her smiling. He would, on the whole, rather have been allowed to take her in. Alas, his mother was not one to violate rules, nor one to allow them to relax when there were visitors who needed to be treated to as impressive and correct a dinner as could be given eight people without tipping over into the ridiculous.

James, all anxious angles and white whiskers, led the procession with Mrs Lomax, who was correct yet subtly wrong, on his right arm. She was looking up at him with an ingratiating expression on her face, saying something that seemed to make him even more anxious than usual. Soames felt sympathy for his father, but was unable to rescue him.

Next, Dartie with Irene on his arm. Dartie was being every bit as charming as that man of the world knew how to be: he was not quite in his cups yet, uplifted but not unduly exalted, dripping with compliments, and letting his eyes linger a shade too long on Irene’s décolletage.

Soames had Winifred on his arm and walked behind, watching. He saw Irene’s gloved hand on Dartie’s coat sleeve, white against its black, and noted how Irene was holding herself at a careful distance while smiling and seemingly enjoying his compliments. He glanced to his side to see how Winifred was taking it: she seemed not even to notice. Did she know yet what sort of man her husband was? She knew he hadn’t paid for those pearls round her neck, but she hadn’t yet seen the drinking, the nights out, the infidelities, or felt him twist her arm to get her to do what he wanted. And it would be nearly twenty years more before Dartie would do what he eventually would with those pearls.

Soames watched Dartie smile his brilliant smile at Irene, knowing Irene was immune to it, and knowing that Winifred was still in love with the man. She would have her heart broken as thoroughly as he’d had his the first time round. Could he do anything about it? He would spare her if he could. He laid his hand over his sister’s on his arm and said, “Winifred, I—”

“What is it, dear boy?”

“Nothing. Just remember I’m here for you.” He couldn’t say anything to her, not here, not now. Could he ever?

Winifred said, puzzled, “Soames, dear, of course. You always are.”

They went in, Soames’s hand still over his sister’s as if he’d forgotten it were there. Behind them were Lomax and their mother, and Soames could hear his mother making her usual comfortable conversation about food, with Lomax making somewhat over-enthusiastic replies. She did fuss over what her guests preferred, and Lomax was being congenial if unsubtle.

They sat, and Warmson began his smooth rounds, aided by a footman. Soup, sherry. Soames watched Irene, seated as far away from him as the table allowed, and drank a spoonful of thick soup. Why was she so far away? Just then she looked up and caught his eye, and they smiled at each other.

Winifred leaned close to him. “I can see how she’s looking at you, Soames. She is indeed as gorgeous as you said.”

Soames flushed. “I don’t know why everyone is so surprised.”

“We all expected exaggeration, I suppose, but we ought to have known better with you. Even if you are in love, you describe things as they are.”

“I should hope so,” muttered Soames. He buried his face in his sherry glass rather than have to give any better account of himself, or explain exactly how much in love he was. Likely Winifred could read him as well as his mother could.

He put down the sherry glass and did his best to get through his soup. It wasn’t all that hard, to his surprise: she was here; he could see she was safe and happy; he would be able to touch her later. This thought soothed him enough that he contentedly drank his soup, ate his fish, and drank enough wine with each that Winifred commented on his appetite. He glowered at her, and she laughed at him.

The meal went all eight courses, and the wines were good and plentiful, and at least two of the gentlemen at the table took full advantage of them. By the time they were cracking nuts, Lomax and Dartie were both red in the face. James had a word with Warmson, and the port that appeared as the ladies withdrew was not the port that had been laid down for Soames at his birth, but instead a far more ordinary port. The two men were in no condition to appreciate what they were drinking, and it would have upset Soames as well as his father to waste good port on them.

Lomax and Dartie lit cigars; James and Soames abstained. James’s cigars were good, but unpleasant to Soames’s nose; his younger self was incapable of tolerating them, apparently. Dartie and Lomax puffed away, cheerfully trading lewd jokes, the sort of joke that had been told at dinner-parties by men of the world for a century. Soames looked at his father, who looked right back at him, united at that moment in distaste and impatience. James made an imperceptible head gesture at Warmson, who took the port away without seeming to have done anything at all. Soames finished his own drink with little interest in it. He’d known the man was ill-bred, but he hadn’t quite realised how ill-bred until that moment.

“Well,” said James, setting his half-empty glass down, “let’s see how they’re getting on out there.”

Soames gave him a grateful look and made his way out and up to the drawing room with more rapidity than was perhaps polite. The ladies were seated on sofa and chairs seemingly making cheerful conversation. Irene and Winifred were sitting with their heads together, deep in discussion about something. Soames wondered if he ought to be alarmed or not; they both looked up, saw him, and then whispered to each other, and he decided he was most certainly alarmed. Winifred was going to tease him about something.

The other men appeared behind him, and there was a general noise of greeting and conversation.

Irene stood and immediately went over to Soames, who took her hand and kissed it with simple intensity. He kept hold of it and drew her over to stand near the fire with him. He held her gaze for a moment and raised an eyebrow. She smiled and nodded at him; he wasn’t sure what she meant. “You have been talking to my sister.”

“Yes, and she has told me stories of you as a boy.”

Soames made a deep sound and glared across the room at Winifred, who was looking at Mrs Lomax, not at him, so it was wasted.

“She says you have always been a most protective brother, and that you have excellent taste. Oh, and that my engagement ring is very chic.”

“Not the word I’d have used.”

“Your mother called it modern.”

“A better word.”

“Come, let us go take our coffee and make conversation properly.” Irene stroked his arm as she said this, so as to soothe the sting of having to return to the dinner party, so he followed her and took a seat at the edge of the group, in the back, where he wouldn’t have to make conversation. Irene returned to the sofa, between his sister and his mother. Winifred took her hands and gathered her in immediately.

Soames accepted a coffee cup from his mother and listened to them all talk, watching Irene quietly as he always had at these things. She was setting them all straight about where she had studied, the Conservatoire de Paris, about how few women had been there and how old they had variously been, how she had had to audition for her place in the school. She had been granted a scholarship from an English musical institution once she had been admitted. Soames found himself wanting his moustache again, simply so he could gnaw it in misery. How had he never asked her these questions?

Emily was saying, “When I was admiring that most lovely ring Soames gave you, I noticed how short your nails are kept. Is that for your instrument?”

“Indeed, yes.”

Winifred then said, “How tedious is it to be asked to play in every drawing room you visit?”

Irene laughed. “It depends on the drawing room, what they want to hear, and how happy they are to hear it.”

Winifred then said, “Well, we shan’t ask you unless you wish to, to give you a bit of a rest from it. But do tell, was it disappointing to return to Lymington after Paris?”

“Yes and no. I do miss the music of Paris, and how much was happening at the conservatoire. But I did meet a true friend in Lymington. He is the person I play for most often now.”

Everyone looked at him, and Soames hid his face behind his coffee-cup, though it was already empty. Then he realised that this was a cue for him. He set cup and saucer down, and said, “I should like to hear something now, if you would. Surprise me, please. I shall turn pages for you.”

He stood and offered his hand to her. She rose gracefully and took it. He led her over to the piano. She raised the top slightly, enough that it could be heard without being loud, and then sat down and adjusted the bench. She rested her fingers on the keys for a moment with her eyes closed.

“Is all well?”

“Quite well. Dinner was wonderful. The wine was excellent, but I fear there might have been more of it than my step-father is quite used to.”

“Quite a lot more,” said Soames. “Will it be all right?”

“My step-mama knows how to manage him.”

Irene opened her eyes and began to play. He wasn’t sure what it was; not the Brahms, not Mendelssohn, at least not that he could tell. He didn’t know much yet, he had to admit. It had of course been absurd to think about turning pages for her; she was playing this from memory. It had a lovely melody, almost singing over something deeper murmuring below it. It had a composition like Corot’s, he thought, with contrasts. A serene meadow with that girl reading quietly, and a shaded brook running beside it and darker forest. Not that he had words for it!

He stood watching Irene’s face as she played, trying to work it out. It ended quietly before he had a chance to decide what it was about. But did it have to be about something?

A polite applause came from the other side of the drawing room, followed by the buzz of conversation resuming.

He looked his question at her.

“Schubert,” Irene said. “One of his impromptus. Opus 90 number 3, in G-flat.”

He took out his notebook and propelling pencil, laid the notebook on the piano, and wrote something carefully.

Irene cried out: “Aha! You are discovered! That is how you remember what I play.”

He nodded. “I am methodical. Or I try to be.” He tucked his notebook away into his coat pocket. She smiled fondly at him. He wanted to kiss her, but bit his lip instead. He asked, “What is an impromptu?”

“An excellent question, my dearest pupil. It’s a piece meant to sound as if it’s improvised in the moment, flowing, without any specific structure. Sonatas have quite strict form.”

“I shall take you at your word,” Soames said, bemused.

“Would you like to hear another?”

“Please.”

The next one was faster and more full of fancy little figures on top, with a melody underneath that Soames liked; it felt quite easy to like, he thought, even when it went into a section he’d recently learned to call minor key. When she finished, she told him it was the fourth in opus 90, in A-flat major, and he wrote that down carefully as well.

At that moment, Lomax came over to them. He put his hands over her bare arms and held her more closely than Soames felt was quite necessary. Irene’s face was completely still, and her smile was gone. Lomax rocked her back and forth, smiling cheerfully. “Is my lovely step-daughter entertaining you? She is so talented, isn’t she? Such a wonder!”

Soames gave him a smile that exposed one tooth. “Quite,” he said.

Lomax shifted his hands up and fondled Irene’s shoulders. “Such a love,” he said. “I’m going to miss her so much when she flies the nest.”

Irene slipped out from under Lomax’s hands and gracefully moved over to Soames without seeming to be fleeing, but Soames felt a tremble in her hand as he took it. He bowed over it and kissed it in an obvious manner, so as to give her an excuse for coming over to him.

“I am honoured Irene has flown to me,” he said to Lomax, with a voice that ought to have sent him running. “Now. Shall we return to the rest of the party?”

He held Irene back a step behind Lomax to look his question at her. She shook her head at him, and sighed. He pressed her hand between his to reassure her. They sat down with the rest of the group, and made conversation. Or Soames did; Irene was silent for some minutes. The after-dinner conversation did not last long, however, for neither Dartie and Lomax was pleasing their wives.

“Come along, Willy,” said Mrs Lomax, in a voice nearly as cool as Soames’s. Ah, there would be hell to pay if he continued misbehaving. Dartie and Lomax exchanged commiserating looks, those two would-be men of the world, and the Jameses saw the Lomaxes to the door.

Dartie made a showy, charming farewell to both Mrs Lomax and her beautiful step-daughter. Soames drew Irene to the side to make his own quieter farewell, for doing so in front of anyone else was unbearable. He could kiss her hands and her cheek but not her lips. At least he could whisper a reminder to her to write to him before he had to step back and release her. She went off back to the hotel with her step-parents, handed into a cab by one of the male servants. He watched it head off, hoping Lomax wouldn’t dare repeat himself in front of his wife.

“Monty, dear, we ought to be going too,” said Winifred. “We need to be back for Publius quite soon.”

“Right right! Mustn’t keep the boy waiting!” Dartie said, with the tipsy good cheer of a man who had a son to perpetuate his name.

And with that the front door of Park Lane closed behind their visitors. Warmson vanished in the way he always vanished.

“Well,” said Emily.

“Yes,” said Soames.

Emily wound her arm through his and drew him into the drawing room and stood him before the fire. “My dear boy,” she said.

Soames looked into her face with concern, afraid she was about tell him something awful. But there was a look of deep affection in her eyes, and she went on: “My dear boy, she is perfectly lovely, and has excellent manners and grace in all the ways that her step-parents do not. I have never seen you so happy as when you are looking at her.”

Soames flushed. Had he showed his feelings this clearly the first time? He had not. He had kept his face unruffled and calm, and lived to regret it.

“What’s more, she is indeed beautiful, and it is clear to anyone with eyes that she thinks the world of you. My boy!” And that was a warm embrace from his mother indeed.

“She’s a taking thing,” said James, gruffly. Soames gave him a look. James grumbled under his breath about how nobody’d told him how pretty she was. That was the most he’d get from his father in the way of an admission that he’d been right about Irene, and it would do.

“Her step-mother and I have agreed she’ll stay a fortnight. She had feared we might not want her so long, but I’ve set her quite straight on that. We’ll get a good start on her dresses immediately, so she’ll have something to wear when we introduce her to the family.”

Soames knew he had that look on his face again, but it was completely beyond his control. Emily looked entirely pleased to see it. “My dear boy, I knew you would find somebody who was right for you. Dear Irene is a wonderful match.”

James gave them a long lugubrious sniff. “Can’t say the same for her relations. That Lomack fellow shan’t drink any more of my port if I’ve got anything to do with it.”

“Now, James, there’s no use blaming the girl for her step-parents. We needn’t know them after the wedding.”

“Thank goodness,” muttered Soames.

“We’ll have to have them to dinner tomorrow night, and that’ll be it until the wedding.”

“They’re coming by again tomorrow in the afternoon to wrap up a few last things. At least the fellow won’t dare try for anything more from you after that performance.”

Soames nodded in sharp agreement. That had to be half of Mrs Lomax’s annoyance.

Emily said, “Well, anyway, that’ll be over soon enough. Soames, dear. Your friend Gregory, Mr Parkes—I have invited him round to dinner the night after they leave. I do wish we could find someone to make up the number.”

“I’ll go without,” Soames said.

“A pity,” said Emily.

“I promised Parkes he would get to enjoy your dinners. He said he had specially fond memories of your menus.”

“Well, that was kind of him, dear. I do hope we won’t disappoint him.”

The compliment had pleased Emily greatly, Soames saw. That was the magic of Parkes, the magic Soames never had himself. With plans for the morrow made, he kissed his mother goodnight, and took his own leave. He made his own way home on foot, feeling he needed to take some exercise.

In the morning the housekeeper brought him hot water and his post. He washed and shaved, carefully. It wouldn’t do to nick himself with Irene in town to see it. His hand was steady and he was feeling rather happy to know he’d be seeing her at tea at Park Lane and again at dinner, and then every day for another two weeks. He started dressing: linens, white shirt, the usual grey trousers and braces. He started idly sorting through his post, still only half-dressed. A letter from an acquaintance, one from an important client, a letter from Irene! She’d written to him already. He opened it hastily.

Soames, My step-father continues to trouble me now we have returned to the hotel. My step-mother has gone to bed with a nervous headache. I am in my bedroom with the door locked writing this. He was calling to me through the door to come out, saying he knew how to have a good time in London and I ought to join him. I’ll give this to the boots when he falls asleep. I don’t know what to do. Yours, IH

Soames stood frozen for a moment, while even colder anger ran through his blood, then he seized control of himself and thought it through. He’d known the man was not quite sober when they’d left. The thing to do was go there as quickly as possible. Then he would know what needed to be done next. What did he still need to do? Oh. Stockings, boots, that order. Cuffs, collar, tie, knotted as rapidly as possible. Waistcoat, watch-chain threaded. Frock-coat. Pockets filled with what he needed for the day, while his hands trembled with anxiety and the need to move even faster than he was moving.

Coat on, out the door, her letter in his pocket. He ran to Victoria Street and hailed a hansom on the curb. He was at their family hotel in Sussex Gardens shortly before nine. The porter admitted him. Soames gave him his card and asked for Mrs Lomax. He then stood waiting with carefully concealed impatience to hear if he would be received.

Five minutes later, he was ushered upward to the first floor, to a little sitting room; Irene was to his right at a writing desk, turning and catching his eye for a moment. He took note of the two doors opening off from the room, the sofa, the armchair, the table in the centre. Mrs Lomax was standing up from a chair to greet him. Soames advanced to shake her hand.

“Dear Soames! Such an early visit!”

“Yes, forgive me. I wanted to assure myself you were settling in well.”

“We are. This neighbourhood is charming, and we are most grateful to your mother for having suggested this hotel to us.”

“My mother had your comfort in mind.”

“It’s a pity we’re only staying for the two days!”

“There will be other visits,” Soames said.

“Irene is settling in comfortably also, though of course she has a rather longer stay ahead of her.”

“Yes. Good morning, Irene.” He took a step towards Irene, gloves in left hand, and reached out to shake her hand. She looked tired, he thought: she must have had a sleepless night. On the desk before her was a dip pen, a bottle of ink, and a square of her stationery half-filled. Whatever she had been writing, she had not quite finished. He caught her eye again, and raised his eyebrows. She raised her hand to her lips. He would give her enough time to finish. He turned back to Mrs Lomax, who invited him to sit. He set his gloves on the little table and placed himself where Mrs Lomax’s back was to Irene. He could watch Irene from here while he made whatever conversation he could manage to make.

“Will you be joining my parents for dinner at Park Lane tonight?” he asked, knowing the answer in advance.

“Indeed we will be, and we will be calling on them later today to discuss more about the arrangements for you two.”

“My mother seemed most interested in discussing wedding dates.”

“Yes, we have so much to discuss! Though she did seem to think the date was quite obvious to her. The gentlemen had worked out some satisfactory arrangement about the trousseau, and we had only begun to discuss that.”

“I do hope you will spare me the details,” Soames said, because it was something he thought she might expect him to say, and indeed he got the response he wanted, at some cost to his dignity. “But what date have you agreed upon?”

“Oh, I shan’t speak out of turn. It will be a lovely autumn wedding, however.”

“I had guessed mid-October, given what I expect it will take to furnish a house.”

“Have you chosen anything yet?”

“No. I have some idea of neighbourhoods, but have not yet considered anything seriously.”

“There is so much to be done! I’m sure you are most grateful Irene is to stay.”

“Indeed, yes. I regret I am not available to escort Irene to more galleries today; I have two important client meetings at my office that I cannot avoid.”

“Of course you do, Mr Forsyte. Such a clever man. Irene, what are you doing writing while Soames is here to visit you?”

“My apologies, Mama, two of my friends from the Conservatoire are here in London, and I did so wish to write to see if I might call on them while we are visiting.”

“Oh!” Soames said, quite eagerly so as to attract Mrs Lomax’s attention away from Irene. “Please do let us know if we may invite them to dinner tomorrow. My mother was fretting that we need someone to make up the number. My groomsman will be there tomorrow night, and she’s short one lady. To hear her talk, this is a disaster worse than anything she has encountered in years. She would be delighted to have more around her table to enjoy her hospitality, and we can always find more gentlemen if both wish to join us.”

Mrs Lomax tittered. “Your mother is such a gracious host.”

“She is. My mother’s door is always open.” And he glanced at Irene.

“How thoughtful of her,” Irene said. “I shall do so, though it is short notice.” She had turned away from the writing desk, he noted, and the paper in front of her was clean.

Soames checked his watch. “Ah. I must be on my way to my office.” He stood and picked up his gloves. “I trust I shall see you both for tea at Park Lane?”

“Of course, Soames!” said Mrs Lomax, and he gritted his teeth as always to hear her use his first name. He shook her hand.

Irene stood as well and advanced to shake his hand. Soames took her hand, and leaned down to kiss her cheek gently. In her palm was a square of tight-folded paper, which he slipped between his fingers. He traded his gloves into his right hand, then made a brief fuss with them. The note went into a glove safely.

“Soames, dear, a moment, please.” Irene reached up and straightened his collar and readjusted his four-in-hand knot slightly. “That looks better,” she said. She smiled up at him, seemingly unaware of what an utter tumult she’d caused inside him with that tiny gesture.

He opened his mouth then closed it again, unable to find anything at all to say. He held Irene’s hand again for a long silent moment, then took his leave of them. He rattled down the stairs, to the porter, who gave him his hat and umbrella. Soames tipped the man absent-mindedly, and touched the note in the palm of his glove. Read it here or in a cab? Here, or he would surely lose his mind.

Soames, There were angry words spoken in the next room this morning. I could not hear them well enough to know what was said. My step-father was quite apologetic to my step-mama afterwards, and he ignored me. He left to do some brief business in the City. It was only the wine, I hope. I look at what I have written and find it an absurd hope. I shall go to your parents’ house for the day to be sure. I think about what life was like when my father was alive and it is difficult to think about without mourning him again. I might wish—You have come. Your face says everything you are feeling to me now that I know how to hear it. Thank you. I know where to find you today. IH

Soames tucked the note into his breast pocket and made his way out to the Bayswater Road to hail a cab. Lomax was a problem when he was drunk, just as Dartie was, and held in tight rein by his wife when he was sober. It was perhaps no worse than that, though that was bad enough. It could be managed for the time that Irene had left with them, and Soames would be on the watch.

That evening Lomax himself was on his best behaviour. Warmson, uninstructed, never filled his glass above the half, and Lomax never marked it. Soames, seated at his mother’s right, watched her and saw that she was coolly pleased. She said a word to Lomax, encouraging him to have another croquette, then smoothly turned back to Mrs Lomax and continued the conversation about hats. His mother had her own techniques, honed over years, now on quiet display. A father, a son, a dinner party: she managed them all deftly, without them even noticing, leaving them all pleased to have been managed.

He kept his smile to himself, because he would have hated to explain it, but it was pure admiration.

XV. George is surprised

Early Thursday morning the Lomaxes caught the train from Waterloo station, leaving Irene established in Park Lane under Emily’s delighted management. Soames found himself smiling quietly all day while he worked. Irene would be in London for two weeks. He would see her every day, dine with her every night, and be able to call on her whenever she wished him to. He could send her flowers every day! He had indeed already commenced doing so, by means of a florist who would send restrained but aesthetic arrangements every morning.

He called round at Park Lane at tea to hear how things had gone with Irene and the various members of the family who’d appeared and been introduced. He found his cousin George installed in an armchair drinking tea, with Irene not yet down. He shook George’s hand warily and sat, braced for wit at his expense.

George was in hot water with Uncle Roger for some reason that George certainly was not speaking about. Young Roger was alleging it was about a woman and the only thing George would say was that it certainly was not: he had better sense than that. Whatever it was, George was being diligent about attending family functions outside of the presence of any members of his immediate family until the storm had blown over. He had called on the aunts with assiduous attention, and had made his duty call on his favourite Aunt Emily to beg for her assistance in avoiding his family. Or so he was explaining; Soames had his doubts.

“Dear Aunt, you must rescue me,” George said. “My brother Roger is haunting my club, on the warpath to lecture me about my supposed transgressions, and I must hide from him. I don’t dare dine there. Dartie has failed me. He claims that fatherhood has interfered with the duties of friendship, if you can imagine.”

Emily said, “Well, this is providential, because we were looking for a fourth man to make up the number tonight.”

“Am I crashing a dinner party, Aunt?”

“Only a small one, I’m afraid. Miss Heron has invited two friends to dine with us, and we are joined by Soames’s groomsman.”

“Miss Heron?” said George. “Oh! Miss Heron!”

At that moment, Irene entered the drawing room, and Soames rose and went to her.

“Here she is now!” said Emily. “Irene, please do allow me to introduce my nephew George Forsyte. George, Miss Irene Heron.”

George sprang to his feet as well. He reached out to take her hand and kiss it. He said, “Miss Heron! I have heard your name whispered behind the closed doors of shadowy drawing rooms across London. The tea pots steam with mysterious brews as the Forsytes speak in hushed voices one to the next of the exotic beauty of this Miss Heron, who has stolen the heart of the cold and formidable Soames, he who stood frozen and untouchable for so long. And here you stand before me!”

“George,” said Emily. “Are you drunk?”

“No, Aunt, simply stunned. Charmed, Miss Heron. I shall not miss dinner for anything now.”

Soames made a sort of growling sound, and Irene looked at him oddly before looking back at George and saying something gracious to him that Soames completely missed.

“Aunt, I will hide myself away until the dinner hour, and present myself at half-past seven on the dot, a well-behaved nephew, diligent about family matters, not at all a reprobate.”

“Goodness, George, I should think not.”

“Thank you, Aunt. You are among the few. Miss Heron, I am delighted to make your acquaintance, and glad of the chance for your company later this evening. Adieu!”

And George left.

“Well,” said Emily, “he’s certainly in an odd mood. I do wonder what he’s done.”

Soames, who had no idea what it was about, said merely that he thought Uncle Roger was making a fuss over nothing. If his own father fretted over nothing, Roger often explosively raged over nothing. George was capable of anything, mind, but Soames rather doubted he’d done anything noteworthy this time other than gamble his bank account dry.

Soames crossed one knee over the other and drank his tea with his mother and his fiancée. He watched Irene stealthily over his cup, once again peacefully left to enjoy merely being near her.

“Well, you have your number made up,” he said to his mother.

“Indeed, I won’t need to go without a partner, now. Irene, both of your friends sent notes around accepting, so we shall have a lovely full table tonight.”

Irene’s face lit with uncomplicated joy. Soames felt his heart squeeze with matching happiness. She would be happy to see her friends; he would therefore be happy to meet them. His mother would certainly invite them to the wedding so they could sit on Irene’s side of the aisle and fill it out somewhat.

“We have had quite a collection of people calling today,” Emily said.

“I have met nearly all of the younger cousins, I think,” Irene said.

“Sunday is for Timothy’s and the aunts and uncles,” said Soames. “The true ordeal.”

“You are quite cynical, my dear boy. You’ll give Irene the wrong idea about them all.”

“To the contrary,” he murmured.

“How many of them are there?” Irene said. “I get the sense there are more than I originally thought.”

“Ten in the Forsyte family proper,” Emily told her, “but you won’t see two of them.” She then counted them off. “Dear Aunt Ann, the oldest of them all. Then Uncle Jolyon, the third of the name, the head of the family. He has a son, but—”

“The less said the better,” said Soames.

“The boy did behave badly, making his father so unhappy. Well. Next is our own dear James, and his twin Swithin, though they look nothing alike. Then Roger—”

“George’s father,” said Irene.

“His older brother is called Young Roger when you’re at Timothy’s,” Soames said.

“Does Young Roger have a son?” asked Irene.

“No, but if he did he would be called Very Young Roger, of course.”

“Of course.” Irene smiled at him and Soames smiled back. Their first son would be Young James, and she’d probably guessed that already.

Emily continued, “Then Aunt Juley, Mrs Septimus Small. Her husband passed away very young. She does say the oddest things.”

“Usually what everyone is most hoping she won’t say,” murmured Soames.

“Then Aunt Hester, who never married, then Uncle Nicholas.”

Irene said, “Soames has mentioned his uncle Nicholas. What about Timothy himself?”

“It’s his house, but you shall almost never see him,” said Soames. “He hides in his study. He’s the youngest of the aunts and uncles.”

Emily rounded it off. “Finally Aunt Susan, the next-youngest. She lives on Campden Hill and visits rarely. And that’s all ten. Then there are all the wives, cousins, husbands and wives of cousins, their children, family connections, and so on. You’ve met only about half the cousins today.”

“Oh dear,” Irene said. She set her tea cup down and looked dismayed for a moment.

Soames said, “As I said, an ordeal.”

Emily sighed at Soames and turned to Irene. “You’ll do marvellously, my dear. You were wonderful with them all earlier today.”

Irene touched Emily’s hand in gratitude. Soames had to look away to hide his moment of emotion. He didn’t remember the two of them being this close in his previous life; he didn’t remember them being close at all. Irene had maintained a cool distance from all of the Forsytes, save perhaps from June, a chilly politeness that had devolved to pure passive ice with him. She had not been graceful with him, the way she had with everyone else, even when cool and distant with them. He had been so miserable at the time, wishing for warmth from her, starving for any scrap of affection, that it hadn’t occurred to him to ask what she felt like: what had it been like to hold everyone around her at such a distance? Why had she done it? What had been so frightening that she hadn’t dared let anyone get close, not even his warm mother?

He didn’t know, and possibly would never know, except that it had likely been something he had done. Every difference this time round was because he was a different man, a man who had lived through the fire once, and was striving to do better and make amends for his failures. He was the difference. He clenched his fist and released it. Well, he was doing his best. He was getting it right so far. Irene was so much happier now, sitting and talking with his mother, than she had ever been before.

Partly soothed by this thought, Soames stood. “I’ll be back in time for dinner, Mother.”

“Why don’t you see Soames to the door, dear,” Emily said to Irene, completely unaware of any distress in her son.

Irene accompanied him to the door. Soames was aware of Warmson appearing briefly then vanishing again, out of Irene’s sight. Perfect discretion, perfect awareness of what was wanted. He shrugged on his coat, turned to Irene, and took her hands in his.

“Well,” he said.

“You are distressed by your family, but you do have a family,” Irene said.

“True. Too much of one, perhaps, but—”

“But some of them seem quite interesting. And I shall meet your friend Mr Parkes tonight.”

“Yes.” A moment of silence, then he said. “May I beg a kiss?”

“A brief one.”

“Irene.” He smiled then, and she rewarded him with a sweetly long kiss, still chaste, with their hands clasped between them keeping them at a modest distance, but it was full of affection regardless. He felt soothed; they were both having such a better time this time round, for that was happiness on her face. He left the house content.

Soames returned early for the dinner with a morocco case in his pocket. He asked Warmson to let Miss Heron know he was here, and would like a word in private if she were available. Irene came down to the drawing room in her green evening gown, her best one, with a quizzical look on her face.

Soames had the case hidden behind his back. He said, “I suspect that this is not—that is, it’s not as meaningful to you as music is, but—”

“Soames, I’m not certain what you mean. Please say it straight out.”

“I have a gift for you.”

He opened the case and offered it to her. It was a piece of the new aesthetic work—silver-set, not the heavy gold of his aunts’ generation, but instead a brooch with an emerald at its heart and small leaves of green enamel around it. Modern, in a lovely shape that was unlike anything else. He had seen her look at her step-mother’s old-fashioned jewellery without lingering; he had seen her fail to react to Winifred’s pearls; he hoped she would prefer this. If she cared for jewellery at all, that was.

She took it from him and looked at it wide-eyed. “Oh!” She touched it in its velvet nest. “This is lovely! Is this from Liberty’s? Did you choose this?”

“It is indeed, and yes. I thought you might like it.”

“I do! One moment while I take this one off.”

She deftly removed the one she had already pinned on, and exchanged it for his gift in the case. Apparently she felt differently about this sort of gift than the Irene he remembered did. Or perhaps he hadn’t worn out his welcome with jewellery? It was his first gift of it to her, if one did not count the engagement ring.

“May I?” he said, leaning forward. That was a daring offer, but she consented, and then blushed when she realised where his fingers were about to be. So did he, but he had offered, and there it was: he was touching her dress just over her breast, finding the right place for the brooch. He pinned it on very gently and carefully, and then took her hands. “May I kiss you?”

She smiled up at him. “Ah, giving me things is a scheme to earn kisses, then.”

“If I wanted the most kisses, I would give you one sheet of music for each kiss.”

“That is an extortionate rate.”

“I must collect.”

“I shall pay what I owe, then. Come and claim your kiss.”

He leaned down to kiss her, and lingered, eyes closed. So sweet! Their kisses were still chaste, still soft shy things, but also things Soames could lose himself in, it seemed, for the moment lasted long enough that they were both startled by Emily’s voice kindly reminding them that guests would be here soon. They stepped apart, Soames’s cheeks reddened. His mother spotted the brooch immediately, of course, and made appropriate sounds of admiration and praise. She also noted how well it suited the dress, and how well the colour of the dress suited Irene. She then mentioned that she and Irene were to go to their first fitting at a dressmaker on the morrow, and suggested Irene bring this dress for alterations to make it suit the latest fashions.

Irene smiled at his mother and expressed her gratitude for the assistance, saying she would otherwise be embarrassed to find herself without options, and Emily was comfortably affectionate in response. Soames was relieved that this relationship appeared to be going well enough. Irene tucked the case away into her dress pocket and gave him a secret smile of affection that left him glowing with happiness.

The guests began trickling in a few minutes later, starting with George on time as promised, at half-past seven. Shortly afterwards, Irene’s two Conservatoire friends arrived on each other’s heels. They were around her age, neither of them married. They seemed pleasant enough, pretty enough, dark-haired both, vivacious both, and to have fond memories of being at the Conservatoire together. Lucie Béranger, the slightly younger one, was a daughter of a French diplomat stationed in London, and had earned a certificate in violin. Rosalyn Whitford, like Irene, was an Englishwoman who had studied piano. She was older than Irene by a year or two. Miss Béranger had brought her instrument, and she and Miss Whitford were soon cajoled by George into playing a duet. Soames found himself liking George more than he ever had: he was exerting himself to be pleasant, and especially to make Irene laugh.

Parkes arrived just as the duet commenced, and was introduced to Irene quietly, so as not to interrupt the music.

“Ah,” he said, “I am delighted to meet the woman who has made Forsyte happy. He has told me so much.” He bowed and kissed her hand.

“The feeling is mutual,” Irene said. “He has told me you have been a most steady friend to him, and how happy he was that you agreed to stand up with him.”

They both looked at Soames with expressions on their faces that made him beat a hasty retreat lest he be forced to endure anyone paying attention to him while he had to notice it. Attention made him miserable. Birthdays were always a trial for him; he was aware that the coming rounds of dinners and the wedding itself would be equally miserable. He could not bear the thought of enduring more of it. He made his way back to the duetting pair by the piano in time to join in the quiet applause.

Soames made conversation with the pianist, Miss Whitford, asking her how she had come to attend the Conservatoire, casting about for anything at all to talk about. He found Miss Whitford pleasant and quite willing to talk. Soames was honestly happy to meet someone who’d known Irene in her Paris days; he could ask questions and learn about her from people who knew her well.

His mother was winding her way through the guests and having a quiet word with each of the men, no doubt telling them whom they were taking in to dinner. She came to him last of all and told him that Miss Whitford was his, which disappointed him and yet he knew that he would never take in Irene if anybody other than the family were present. It was his father’s honour to take Irene in tonight, so that she might have a chance to get to know him and he might have his fears allayed by getting to know her. It was sensible; his mother was always sensible about these things.

The procession began, so much more relaxed and jovial than the one with the Lomaxes had been. James led them in with Irene on his arm. Soames was much more at ease watching this: Irene was genuinely happy to be on his father’s arm, and his father looked as if he had begun to warm to her. George was next, with the young French violinist; he was making animated conversation with her, half in English and half in French. Soames came behind with Miss Whitford, whom he had decided he would learn all he could from during dinner. Behind them all, Parkes with his mother, from the tone Soames could hear also mutually complimentary.

The grand rectangular table had been exchanged for the circular one, signalling his mother’s wish for a less formal sort of dinner. They took their seats around it anti-clockwise from James back to Emily.

The menu was as pleasant a menu as Emily had ever invented, written in her lovely ornamented hand at each placecard. The menu was more extravagant than it ought to have been, in fact. Soames was again enough used to the presence of his parents in his life that he felt entirely able to cast up his eyes at this, but there was a little fond smile on his face even so: it was what his mother did.

The dinner opened with oysters, the last of the Whitstables that season, Emily said, raw with brown bread, butter, and lemon. George began reciting Lewis Carroll and Irene traded verses with him. Parkes and Miss Whitford both found this amusing. Soames merely ate his oysters and drank his chablis. He knew the poem; he did not need to recite with them. The oysters were delicious.

The table was cleared and there was an interlude of quieter conversation. Soup arrived. Soames watched Warmson moving from person to person, looked at the smiling faces around the table, saw that everyone looked expectant and interested in their partner. He caught his mother’s eye and nodded at her: all was well.

The flowers at the centre of the table were lovely. The gas was turned low so that the warmth of the candlelight might set the mood of the evening, with its sweet smell of beeswax, its flickers and reflections in wine glasses. Candle-lit dinners were things he had not known he missed so keenly; he had not remembered how beautiful they were. Soames felt, looking at the soup he had not yet touched, holding the glass of sherry he had not yet tasted, that his heart was once again in danger of bursting with happiness. He had seldom felt this in his life. It was a gift to feel it now.

He turned to Miss Whitford and said, “I’m glad you could come on such short notice. Irene is so happy to see you.”

“I am quite grateful for your mother’s kind invitation. It’s a delight to see Irene again. I’m so looking forward to playing with her again this evening.”

“Oh?”

“She’s very good. Always held up to the rest of us as the goal to strive for.”

“She never mentioned. The only thing I’ve ever heard from her is that she’s not good enough.”

Miss Whitford looked at him seriously. “She did leave disappointed, it’s true. She was the best of us, but she didn’t have the means to stay in Paris and continue studying. Her letters were unhappy until she met you.”

“She never mentioned it.” He looked at Miss Whitford, uncertain how to react to this.

“Mr Forsyte, you ought to try your soup. It is quite good.”

“Oh! I suppose I ought.”

He looked down at his bowl: it was a thick soup made of something or other—what hardly mattered—with a flower shape at the centre. Some kind of vegetable, he thought, watercress, and it did taste good, though it was a pity to disturb the decoration. He ought to eat; there was plenty of time to make conversation while he ate. He did so, and found himself enjoying both conversation and food. The sherry was good, and Miss Whitford had amusing stories of Paris. She, like Irene, had been charmed by how they had been guarded as they moved about the city.

The fish course arrived. His mother had not turned the table; the rules were informal tonight. Soames continued learning what he could from his dinner partner over sole and chablis. Miss Whitford’s parents had sent her to the Conservatoire on her insistence; she had wanted to pursue her own ambitions but like Irene, had found that she was unlikely to go very far.

“There are few places for women in musical performance,” Miss Whitford told him. “We are either prodigies or members of small community orchestras, and most of us at best teachers. Irene might have found different prospects had she been a man.”

Soames found this dismaying; no wonder Irene had challenged him when he had asked her why she kept trying if she knew she was not going to reach the top. She was not all that far from it, and pushing might have got her there. Or she might have hoped so. Ought women to be performing in orchestras and on stages? He supposed there’d be no choruses or operas without the fairer sex singing. Did he care one way or the other about women staying at home instead of in orchestras? They hadn’t stayed at home during the War or afterwards. Fleur hadn’t. Women certainly painted and always had.

“Now you have become very thoughtful and silent,” Miss Whitford said, “exactly as Irene described you.”

“Sorry! I was wondering what she might have wanted instead of this. Or you—what you might have wanted.”

“I should have liked to perform, but I did not have the skill. Or one might more truthfully say, the willingness to practise nearly as much as I ought. There came a moment when I found I wanted to do other things as well. This particular ambition is somewhat all-consuming.”

“I see.” Soames drank his chablis, and considered the fish before him. He had better eat something of it or Miss Whitford would comment, so he did. The fish was like the rest of his mother’s food, comfortably English, extravagant without eccentricity. One might eat safely.

Soames sat back and watched lamb cutlets arrive, along with burgundy. Conversation at the table was now quite lively. Miss Whitford was engaged in bantering with Parkes about something, no doubt being charmed by him into becoming his fourth young lady, she being more than eligible and exactly the sort of girl his mother would normally have tried to coax him into meeting. Well, Parkes beware!

Soames turned to the Frenchwoman to his left to make his polite addresses to her. He found her still giggling about something George had said, which once again made him feel rather well-disposed towards George. George was speaking to Irene about something that Irene was answering quite seriously; Soames could not hear what, so he decided to pay no mind to it. Instead, he asked Miss Béranger how long she’d been in London and if she’d visited before. She answered half in French, and Soames did his best to reply in the same, apologising for both his accent—Annette’s Parisian overlaid upon his public school French—and his infelicity with grammar. They understood each other well enough, and Soames learned a little about the travails of being a diplomat’s child in an era of continental strife and governmental uncertainty. The last decade had been more stable, at least.

He caught his mother’s eye at one point: she was looking at him oddly, smiling but holding some emotion back. Well, he’d learned somewhere along the line to make conversation at dinner parties with people who weren’t Winifred, even if he’d never be as comfortable as Parkes was.

Laughter broke out across the table from him, and he recognised the voice: it was Irene, completely helpless over something George had said, with George himself looking innocently pleased about whatever it had been, gesturing to James as if to ask for support. Even James seemed amused. Soames had missed it, but it scarcely mattered to him: Irene looked so happy in that moment that he could not possibly have wished for anything else. He smiled down at his plate.

Miss Whitford was looking at him again. “Your cousin seems quite charming,” she said.

“George is a wit, they say.”

“I see,” she said. “How does he occupy himself?”

Soames tilted his head and considered George. “Food, wine, and racehorses, not necessarily in that order. And he has an eye for sporting prints.”

“I am not entirely certain you approve of him.”

“I’m not entirely certain either. But on the whole I think I do. Why do you ask?”

“Because he is flirting with Lucie and I wish to enquire. See how he is looking at her now?”

“Ah. I do. That surprises me. I don’t think I would take it seriously.”

“If you say so.” Soames looked at her quizzically, but she changed the subject immediately to the question of how he had met Irene.

The sweet was handed round, along with sweet wine. Soames ordinarily did not touch this, but he found himself in a mood for it, and ate his meringue for once. It was a bit much for him, but once in a while was surely not too self-indulgent? Then the savoury, and then one came to the nuts.

He noticed his mother catching Irene’s eye, then the eyes of the two younger women, and in a small synchronised movement the ladies rose. The men stood with them. Irene gave Soames a private look as she passed, a moment of eyes meeting; a moment of reassurance that always made him feel soothed. The drawing-room door closed softly behind them all: his mother, Irene, Miss Whitford, Miss Béranger; and the dining room settled into its quieter register.

Warmson brought the decanters. Tonight the good port came out, for it was an occasion. Cigars were offered; Soames declined them, as he always did. He took his port instead and stood with glass in hand, turning it around in his fingers.

James seemed to be in a wonderful mood, which made Soames happy. Parkes and George were smoking, talking nineteen to the dozen, and trying to convince James of something that made the old man smile.

Soames stood just at the edge of the candle-light and drank his port. His port—it was his port in more senses than one. Not as good as that bottle from Swithin’s precious gift, but good nonetheless, and one of the bottles his father had laid down for him at his birth. It was intended for him—every drop that was drunk, was drunk with him present. Nearly twenty-six years this bottle had lain in the cellar, waiting for him to find a woman to marry. If he had a son he would do the same: lay down port for his coming of age, for his professional moments, for his marriage, for his own firstborn son. A grandson of his name? His own name was not worth perpetuating. James was a solid English name. If he had a son—the Fates willing—he would be named James. If he had a daughter, she would be named Fleur in honour of the Fleur he would never meet again, and he would not deign to explain it to anybody. He hoped Irene would understand.

Emotion threatened to make itself known. Soames drank more rapidly than the port deserved and changed his line of thought immediately.

He looked over at the other three men, standing in the pool of candlelight, cigar smoke curling over them. His father was in the middle of some lugubrious anecdote that he was inflicting upon George while the expression on George’s face said that every word out of his mouth was a jest at Soames’s expense. Parkes looked amused.

Soames made his way over to Parkes and beckoned him aside. Parkes allowed himself to be drawn away. “Forsyte,” he said.

Soames raised an eyebrow.

“She’d melt a mountain of glaciers.”

“Ah, you understand now.”

“What the devil is she doing with you?”

“I’m not sure.”

“She’s enough to melt me. I shall steal her from you and elope to the south of France forthwith.”

Soames felt the blood drain from his face. He opened his mouth to say something he would regret. Then in the next moment Parkes’s arm was around his shoulders, and Parkes was speaking quietly in his ear. “Look, you juggins, I’m not serious. You’re the one man in the world I wouldn’t do that to. And besides, she’s mad about you.”

Soames shut his mouth again. He wasn’t sure what to do about Parkes’s arm around him, but decided to try leaning against him and returning the gesture. It was oddly comforting. Was this what friendship felt like for most men? “Sorry, Parkes, sorry. Ought to have known better. It’s just so—I can’t believe it most days.”

Parkes released him and smiled at him; this was the charm in action. “I know where you ought to look to lease,” he said.

Soames perked up immediately. “Where?”

“We shall conspire with the lovely Miss Heron after we finish our port.”

“Right,” he said. He picked up his glass again: if he finished his port, he could be near Irene again.

Parkes said, “Your cousin George either loathes you or is endlessly amused by you. Not sure which.”

Soames gave this careful thought, going over the arc of George’s life in his mind. “Amused, I think. I don’t believe he loathes anyone. Also—he’s wiser than he looks. Perhaps the most philosophical of the lot of us.”

Parkes made a doubtful sound and looked over George again. “Don’t see it in him. I think he’s as deep as a worn Turkey carpet. But he is amusing, I’ll give him that.”

“Come, let’s allow him to be amused by us.” They both made their way over to George, who was very politely enduring the tail end of the anecdote from James. George made a face at them both, looked at James, and then had a drink.

“Cousin George,” Soames said, almost cautiously.

“Cousin Soames! Come to gloat, have you? To parade about before me, boasting of your conquest of what is surely the loveliest woman in London?”

Soames raised his eyebrow, and ventured a daring salvo. “To do so would be to imply she did not conquer me. Perhaps I am the prize.”

“Ah,” said Parkes, grinning. “She the French frigate, snatching up the English merchantman after a fierce battle, carrying him away with all his worldly goods on board.”

George looked stunned for a moment, then laughed. “Very good. I shall never think of you again but as a helpless captive, carried off by the lovely Miss Heron.”

Parkes laughed aloud. “He lies awake dreaming of this every night, and who wouldn’t?”

George put a hand against his brow. “Pax, pax. I am bested. I beg you, tell me no more.”

Soames quirked up one side of his mouth, and yielded to a sudden impulse. “Now that I have you at my mercy, I do have one request of you, if I may, cousin George. Parkes has agreed to stand up with me at my wedding. I should be very glad if you would too.”

George went stock still, his port half-way to his lips. He blinked rapidly. He moved again to raise his port to take a swallow, and returned the glass to a safe position against his waistcoat. “Me?” he said, and looked as if someone had struck him in his forehead, directly between the eyes.

“You,” said Soames.

“I wasn’t under the impression we got on.”

“I believe in keeping my enemies close,” Soames said to him, shrugging. Then, quite casually, “You needn’t if you don’t want to.”

George stared at him for a long moment, and said, “Your mother does put on a most excellent do, as I told my friend Partridge on the occasion of your sister’s wedding. I shall be honoured to mock you every step of the way.”

“Thank you,” Soames said, and gave George a slight bow that was in fact deeply felt. Well, that had been a surprising and perhaps regrettable impulse. Where and when had George found that painting of the monkey? Perhaps he would never learn. All he knew was that he had never truly known who George was, and he suspected no one had.

The man himself said, “What the dickens has come over you anyway? Is this what love does to a man?”

“You shall have to try it and see.”

“Oh, no, not I. I shall ensure that nothing ever happens to me and that I continue blissfully unyoked. I shall at the age of a hundred and two be a jolly groomsman for myriad Forsyte cousins yet unborn. A bachelor forever!”

“Ah, let us agree to that,” said Parkes. “A toast to bachelorhood!” The pair of them tossed off the last of their port to each other, toasting each other in cheerful unity. Soames cast up his eyes at them. So much for flirting with French girls at the dinner table.

Upstairs in the drawing room, a piano was being played, and a violin along with it.

“The ladies are enjoying themselves more than we are,” said Parkes. “We can’t have that.” And with this pronouncement he linked his arm with George’s and the two of them marched out of the dining room to join the ladies over their coffee.

His father looked askance at Soames on their way out. “Are you sure about that? George is a rackety chap.”

“He makes Irene laugh,” said Soames.

“If she weren’t as devoted to you as you are to her I’d be worried, my boy. You’re not yourself. I don’t know. I can’t tell. Never seen you like this before.” James looked at him sidelong. “Not sure I’m easy in my mind.”

Soames didn’t know what to say to this; he wasn’t himself, not precisely. The last time he’d been here, newly-engaged to Irene, he’d reassured his worried father, and been entirely wrong. His father had not thrown it in his face. Well, not really. He’d said he’d known how it would be, but had forborne to rub it in on his son, who’d been completely shattered. This time—this time he felt he was right. This time everything felt different. He’d never attended a dinner like this before, never sat to dinner with so many people he felt were there simply to be happy with him.

Once in the drawing room, Soames made his way straight towards Irene, who was standing at the edge of the pool of light around the piano, watching her two friends play a duet. Miss Whitford sat at the piano. Miss Béranger stood in the curve of the piano reading music set on top, violin under her chin. Irene reached out her ungloved hand to him. He stood by her side, stealthily holding her hand, watching and listening to them play. He didn’t know what it was or if they were good at it or not, but he could see Irene’s gaze intent on Miss Whitford. She made tiny gestures with her fingers against his, and at one point she shook her head very subtly. From this he suspected she was wanting to improve the performance, but was keeping her comments to herself as best she might.

Parkes came over to the pair of them. He stole her hand from Soames so that he might kiss it himself with an extravagant gesture. Irene gave him an arch look. “To what do we owe this visit?” she said.

“I have come to tell you where you shall live.”

“And where is that?”

“South Kensington for the pair of you, quite near the station or a bit west of it. It’s an up-and-coming neighbourhood, walking distance to many interesting things.”

Soames said, “I thought you were looking eastward these days.”

“I am, I am! But eastward is where I am developing new property and where I am purchasing terribly run-down property, not the sort of place for the pair of you. South Kensington in contrast! South Kensington is cheap just now and despite the bad market, has some lovely houses. And the music, and the museums.”

“I see,” Irene said. “The music, you said?”

Parkes raised his eyebrows to her and bowed. “St James’s is in Piccadilly, but so much is closer to Kensington. Take my advice.”

“We shall,” said Soames, and he meant it. This was indeed advice from Parkes, who would be canny about property value and what Irene wanted both.

“Come with me Sunday, if you both have the time. I shall show you round the neighbourhoods, and tell you what I know about them, and where I have invested, and where not.” At Soames’s look, he said, “You backed me on these, if you’ll recall.”

“Ah, yes.”

“The neighbourhoods I’ll be suggesting to you are unrelated to those, lest you fear.”

“I shouldn’t mind,” said Soames.

“Let us not even come near it.”

“If you prefer.”

“Right. That is therefore the plan.”

Soames looked at Irene.

“It sounds perfectly wonderful to me,” she said. “I should like to see more of London.”

“I shall call round after lunch and show you specifically what I have in mind for you. And now, let us enjoy our private concert. I demand that you grace us with your performance as well, Miss Heron. I will not be satisfied until you do.”

“A command performance for you, Mr Parkes,” Irene said. She smiled at them both as she said it, and Soames’s heart ached in that sweet way he’d only recently learned was possible.

After the duet ended, Irene drew the two of them over to the piano, and asked if she might play something especially for Mr Parkes, who had commanded her to perform. Miss Whitford graciously stood and ceded the piano, and came to stand at Soames’s elbow. Irene sat, adjusted the bench, and smiled in a way Soames thought was impish, which gave him a thrill to see. She was happy enough to be teasing someone!

“I shall play Mendelssohn for you, Mr Parkes. Mendelssohn is always safe for a drawing room, I think.”

She began to play. It started slowly, but Miss Whitford touched his arm and said, very quietly to him, “Now you shall see.”

The piece was to Soames’s ear sweet, as the other Mendelssohn she’d played was. There was a lovely slow melody on top, and Irene had a mysterious look on her face. There was no sheet music on the piano stand; she’d said she learned these pieces as a child, though. Soames did like it. Then it took a surprising turn and became loud and forceful, then very quiet indeed. Soames found himself holding his breath, wondering what would happen next. It burst into motion and he nearly jumped—Irene’s fingers sprinted in trills up and then stomped up and down and then suddenly eased up, lightened in touch, and began racing along again, so fast, with so many little decorations. Then it ended very definitively, the sort of ending that even Soames knew was heavy-handed. It was all so breathless and showy.

Miss Whitford applauded along with the others, then ran over to embrace Irene.

“Well,” said Parkes. “She said command performance, and she gave one. You said she was good. I need to remember that Forsyte always tells the truth, the literal truth. He is incapable of doing otherwise.”

“It’s dishonest to do otherwise.” He was, of course, quite capable of lying when necessary, but better to keep them all thinking otherwise.

“You are the oddest fellow I know, but also the most deserving of this woman. I congratulate you once more.” Parkes rested a hand on his shoulder, and Soames held himself in place despite his urge to flinch away.

Next Miss Whitford and Irene sat on the bench together, each with different sheets of music before them, and began playing a four-handed piece. Soames understood for the first time tonight that she had downplayed the level of her skill to him: she might not be able to reach the top, but she was above where her friends were. How he was able to discern that he was not certain, beyond that yes, that Mendelssohn piece had been a showpiece. She was more relaxed in her playing, perhaps, and was he finally hearing what she called subtlety of phrasing? He doubted his ability to hear anything. Still, there was something he was noticing. Whatever was happening, the three of them were delighted by the opportunity to be together again, and took turns in duets. The drawing room was unusually cheerful; even James seemed to have his mood brightened and anxiety soothed by listening to the three of them.

Soames stood back and watched them quietly, unobtrusively. George joined him. Soames looked at him sidelong, bracing himself for whatever George was about to say.

“She’s very good,” George said.

Soames raised his brow. “Didn’t know you knew anything.”

“Didn’t know you did either. But I can tell when a jockey has a good seat.”

“Hmm.”

“They’re all worried about her, you know.” By this, George meant the family, the ever-watching, ever-looming, ever-judging Forsytes.

Soames said, for the hundredth time, “They haven’t met her yet.”

“Half of them will be even more worried when they do. I am looking forward to seeing it. Stir them up, Cousin Soames. It’ll do them good to rouse their blood and make them fear another artist in the family. They drove Cousin Jo out, and they’ve been too comfortable since.”

George grinned at him. He had to have known that Young Jolyon and Soames had not got on at all. He poked Soames in the upper arm with a forefinger and stuck it high into the air and declaimed. “I’ll pay good money to be watching when they meet her. Half of them in love, the other half convinced she’ll steal all their capital. Anyway, congratulations, Cousin Soames. I shall drink your port and your champagne, take your white gloves, and eat your wedding cake.”

“Thank you,” Soames said, rubbing his arm.

“I haven’t had this much sport in years. Carry on.” And with this, George went over to stand next to Parkes, who was making Miss Béranger laugh about something. And yes, that was George flirting again, heavens knew why, given that he’d just declared eternal bachelorhood again.

The dinner party went later than most, for everyone was quite happy to keep playing and listening to music for some time, but eventually Irene’s friends declared their need to leave, and Parkes and George declared their determination to fetch a cab for them and the Béranger footman who had accompanied them, and Park Lane settled down. James vanished upstairs.

Soames returned to the quiet drawing room, where he found Irene standing at the piano, fingers on the keys. Soames went to her and stood nearby, saying nothing.

After a moment she came over to him.

“Is all well?” he asked.

“Yes. I have been thinking.”

“Oh?”

“I haven’t played the Rondo Capriccioso for myself in so very long.”

That was the Mendelssohn, Soames presumed. Irene leaned her head against his shoulder. Her hair smelled of roses and honey. Her scent was different from how it had been before. Had she changed it? It was richer now, deeper, and the honey was a stronger note. It was heady. He found himself sighing with satisfaction.

Irene found his hand and held it, and Soames could not think of a single thing about the day he would change.

XVI. Brick and mortar

Parkes, Irene, and Soames strolled in a leisurely way along the pavements of Pelham Street, heading north-east towards the crescent. It had been a frustrating day. One house had been too small; one too narrow; one too dark. Another that they had all three liked had disappointed them by having plumbing too bad to consider. They had at least learned what to look for, or Irene had. Soames himself had a keen sense of what he liked and did not like, but less of a sense of what he could achieve with what capital he had now, compared to what he’d had when considering homes for Fleur in nineteen-twenty.

At least he had learned he liked the crescents in South Kensington. They faced south, in the main, and caught the sunlight, and would be warmly lit even in winter. They were pleasing to his eye, brighter and less closed-in than the small squares could be. Montpellier Square could be dark and shadowed even in summer, because of the trees at its heart.

This particular arc of housefronts, Pelham Crescent, was perhaps more attractive than most. The sunlight caught the white housefronts in a lovely way. White paint, black doors, stucco. There were flowers in the garden at the centre of the crescent. The three of them crossed the road—no traffic, for it was a quiet Sunday afternoon—and walked the gravelled path through the flowers. Irene stopped to look around. Soames and Parkes paused with her. Soames leaned on his umbrella and considered the sweep of the street around them, and its calm elegance. He rather liked it. It was peaceful and quiet on a Sunday. Parkes took a lunar with his own stick at the street leading out of the middle of the sweep, and at the ends of the crescent behind them.

“I like the way these houses look in the sunlight,” Irene said. “They look different.”

“Basevi,” said Parkes. “A good architect. Designed these and some of Belgrave Square. Need to watch out for your architects. They can be ruinous. Had one design a house with a tower just now.”

“A tower?” said Soames, somewhat aghast.

“Insists it’s the thing.” Parkes shrugged. “I’m letting him build it. It’ll sell. The location is near enough to a station that it’ll be built up over the next decade.”

“You take the long view, then, Mr Parkes,” said Irene.

“That’s the short view. I put the money I don’t want to speculate with into Forsyte’s hands, here.”

Soames gave him a sidelong smile. “And I give Parkes my speculation money.”

Irene gave Soames a quizzical look, then said, “May we go inside any of these houses?”

“There are two to let. Number 18 is nearest. The agent should be inside—I let him know we would be calling.”

They rang the bell at number 18, which was two to the left of Pelham Place, and the agent answered immediately. He had his hat on, and tipped it to Parkes. The two of them had a brief exchange; they seemed to be on good terms. Soames himself had had similar relationships with agents for properties and leases; he understood the dynamics. Parkes seemed well-liked for his ability to bring buyers in. Soames and Irene were the buyers, and they would also be treated well.

Now to see if either of these houses would be tolerable, and if Irene liked either. Parkes had looked frustrated by the discovery that the previous house had such ruinous drainage, and a cistern that needed replacing, and had said as much to the agent for the property. Even his easy temper might be tried by a similar discovery here.

They walked into the front hall, and Parkes opened the door to the left of the staircase. “Dining room,” Parkes said, unnecessarily. “Narrow frontage, but it’s deep.”

They walked around the bare oak planks of the ground floor. The boards creaked slightly under their feet. Wallpapers had been partially removed from the walls, revealing white plaster underneath dark flocked papers that were several thoughts behind the current fashion. Soames wished he could see the room without any paper at all. It was a pleasant enough room, with two windows overlooking the crescent behind them.

He went out into the hall and opened the door to the room behind. This much smaller room overlooked the garden.

“Study,” Soames said, to Irene, who had followed him. “North light.” He looked around the room, as he had at each of the rooms that might have been studies, and imagined a writing desk in a corner, his paintings hung on the walls. The light was right for them. It would do.

They returned to the hall, and opened the door to the back garden. Three steps down took them into a long narrow space, walled, with lilac bushes and spring flowers growing in half-tended beds. A flag-stoned square lay empty at the foot of the steps. Irene walked to the end of the garden, studying the beds, the brick walls, the back gate, and came back to them.

“The garden is charming,” she said. “It’s narrow, as you say, but there is enough garden that we may have flowers and a place to sit when it is sunny.”

They returned to the hall, where the agent awaited them. He handed Parkes a ring of keys.

“You know where to find me, Mr Parkes,” he said, and vanished back along the hall towards the front door.

“Let’s look at the drawing room,” Parkes said, and he ran lightly upstairs.

Irene followed more slowly, and Soames close behind her. No warning signs yet, but then, they hadn’t looked at the drains. The stairs were, as always in these terrace houses, narrower than one might want. The door to the drawing room was at the back of the house, at the end of the hall. The drawing room apparently ran the whole length of the house. They stepped inside.

Windows along the front; a fireplace at the back. A great sweep of open space where they might put sofas, a tea table, armchairs. There was a great deal of space for paintings on the long walls to the left and right.

“Would we have enough room for a piano?” Irene asked. “It is so narrow.”

Parkes had a measuring tape in his coat pocket. He unrolled it and marked off the feet across the windows: twenty-two feet. Soames took one end and walked to the back, while Parkes held the other. They verified the length: forty feet deep. Parkes rolled up the tape and tucked it back into his pocket.

“You’ll want the long end along one of the side walls,” Soames said. “Your decision if your back is to the windows or the fireplace.”

“The fireplace, I think, so along the wall by the staircase.”

Parkes paced out from the wall. “It’ll come out to about here. You’ll want to leave room around the door.”

“No difficulty at all, I think,” Soames said. “Unless you want something quite surprisingly large, in which case we must go back to the previous house.”

“No,” Irene said, “Mr Parkes was unhappy with the plumbing in that house.”

Parkes said, “Ah. Speaking of which. I’m going to go down and look at the plumbing here, and tell you whether you’ll need alterations. Or if we have to move to the next.”

Soames said, “I’ll come along. I hope it’s merely a question of expansion. Only one water-closet and I suspect there’s nothing piped up to the second floor.”

“Don’t tell me you want a geyser.”

“I do.”

“Madman.”

“I am going to look upstairs,” Irene said.

Soames and Parkes rattled their way down the staircase to the very bottom to look at where the water came in to the house, to examine the drains. There followed some exploration that Soames could only watch and learn from, as Parkes rapped on pipes and turned valves and listened to things he knew little about. He could judge property value based on some qualities, but Parkes had a specific expertise that he keenly appreciated. He would not have spotted the trouble at the last house, and would have ended up out of pocket on repairs, or possibly having an angry conversation with the agent while making alterations.

Parkes pronounced the plumbing sound, needing only the expansions Soames was contemplating, which the owner of the lease would likely consider an improvement to the property. Soames would do that negotiation, of course, it being something he was known to be good at. One lifted eyebrow from Forsyte could intimidate any man attempting a negotiation into taking a flat five per cent off the price, or so Parkes said. Soames had not found himself so clearly successful.

Parkes led him back upstairs then went outside to talk to the agent about the cistern on the roof.

Soames ascended the stairs all the way to the second floor, to look at the principal bedroom and what would be his dressing room. There was room for a bath, he thought. Then he went up another flight to look at the arrangement of the rooms there. A spare bedroom, a nursery, a sewing room—whatever it was they would need. They would not furnish a nursery until they needed one. That secret glow of happiness warmed his chest once again as he thought of this, then he tucked it away and moved up the stairs to look at the servants’ rooms in the attic. Adequate; they’d need a third water-closet built on the half-landing. It was a great deal larger than the house in Montpellier Square had been. That had only been valuable for its location near the Park. He’d taken that house for the resale value of the lease. Well, he’d made good on that, hadn’t he, if on nothing else.

That house. He’d taken it; they’d decorated it—together, he’d thought. He’d tried to give her a beautiful place to live, and he’d thought he had. It had been lovely and perfect and she’d thought it a prison. “In heaven—out of this house!” Her words, just before—just before he’d—Had it been the house? Had it been that he’d lived in it with her? He’d built a house for her, had commissioned and built Robin Hill for her, and she’d thought that a prison too. Had he meant it to be one?

He shivered, and turned towards the staircase again, seeking to find her and reassure himself that whatever he was doing, it was not that again. He ran down the steps to the first floor to the open door of the drawing room. He peeked in through the half-opened door to see if she were there.

She was indeed in the drawing room, poised near the wall close to him, looking south through the windows. She raised her hands and seemed to be considering something: the light? the shadows? what the space around herself would be when she played? Soames watched her, staying as still as he could so as not to attract attention. What was she thinking? What was she feeling? Did she like the room?

Irene nodded to herself and her whole body shifted. Soames let a breath out. That was satisfaction in her shoulders: he could see it. Soames stepped all the way into the room then. She heard him and turned. Her face changed when she saw him: she brightened.

“What do you think?” he said, softly.

“This is a good place for a piano, and there will be light during the day. I like the garden.”

“It is very near the station,” he said.

“You are thinking of St James’s.”

“And of my office.”

“I can walk to many interesting things without needing to get on a train.”

Soames took the four steps towards her and took her hands. “The agent is downstairs talking to Parkes. I can arrange it today, if you wish.”

“If I wish?”

“I would live here happily. If you would, then we are agreed.”

Irene’s face changed again, and she went distant and thoughtful. She spoke slowly. “It’s odd. So many changes, so rapidly. I walk along that beach, practise in that drawing room, and think I am trapped there forever, and then you come, so quiet, so unobtrusive. So unlikely a man to overturn everything. But you have.”

Soames didn’t know what to say to that. He’d tried to consider her wishes, but he had thought he’d been doing so last time as well. Had he trapped her again? He didn’t think so, but then, he hadn’t last time. Perhaps he was being absurd. He touched her arm. “Is it better than it was?” he asked, tentatively.

“Yes. I’m bewildered by it, but yes.”

Soames stayed silent, watching her.

“I can imagine living here with you. I can see what it would become with us here.”

“And is that something good?”

“Yes,” she said, and he could hear the decision in her voice. “I would live here happily.”

“Then we are agreed.” Soames gave her a little smile and she returned it.

He offered her his arm and escorted her down the stairs to the ground floor, where they found Parkes talking to the agent. He released Irene, who continued on outside the house. He touched Parkes’s arm.

“We’ll take it,” he said. “But only if the terms are reasonable. I’ll talk to the agent now. Irene’s outside if you’d like to keep her company.”

Parkes nodded to him, and handed the keys back to the agent. Soames heard him head outside, and turned to the agent with some pleasure to begin discussing the terms of the lease.

When he emerged from the house some time later, he found Parkes and Irene sitting on a wall, talking happily about something that required Parkes to gesture wildly. As he came down the steps, they both turned and looked at him expectantly.

Soames said, “An easy bargain, given the market. Terms were more than reasonable. We have shaken hands, and will conclude our business tomorrow.” Irene came over to him and took his arm. He smiled down at her.

Parkes said, “Right. I could do with tea.”

“Capital idea.”

Parkes ran with some energy to hail a growler; Soames and Irene caught up with him and climbed inside. They sat across from him, hands joined stealthily under Irene’s cloak. Soames tried to catch Parkes’s eye, but he was looking away, out the cab window. So he squeezed Irene’s hand instead, and looked into her eyes, and returned her smile. It was a little further away from his office than he might have liked, but it was near the Park, it was near the things she loved, and it was near a station that would take her to more of what London offered her. She was happy.

When they arrived at Park Lane, his mother was there in the hall to greet them, anxious for news.

“We found it,” said Irene. Emily embraced her.

XVII. On Forsyte ’Change

On the first Sunday in May, James’s barouche and pair trotted its way across the Park in windblown sunshine. Soames sat facing forward in the barouche next to Irene, one hand on his top hat, with James and Emily across from them. He was pleasurably close to Irene, who had slipped her arm through his. The Park was bursting with the burgeoning life of spring; the sheep dotted across the green grass were white; the grand elms had begun to leaf out. There were many reasons the Forsytes chose to live around the Park, and one was the simple appreciation of leaf, root, and bough that lurked in the hearts of a family not so far removed from their origins as Dorsetshire farmers. Soames was well aware of this in himself; he had eventually found his heart’s ease in the country, with cows of his own, and why not sheep this time as well?

He rode across the Park with his family in mingled contentment and trepidation, for they were on their way to Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road for tea and Irene’s ordeal: her assessment by his family.

They would all be there, on this Sunday, all the aunts and uncles, ready to meet the woman Aunt Ann’s favourite nephew was to marry. Was she as beautiful as she was said to be? Well, they would know soon enough. Soames’s lip curled as he thought about this, and about how precisely Irene would be weighed in their scales. He had prepared her as well as he might. The boudoir grand piano, he’d said, needed a warning. Every single one of them knew she had no money and was worried about this. Uncle Jolyon disliked him; Uncle Nicholas liked him; his father’s twin she would know what to do with. Aunt Juley would do something more or less disastrous. Irene had made no reply to him, but had given him a long thoughtful look. He hadn’t dared offer her any advice about what to do about any of it. She was on her own.

When they arrived, Soames alit first, handed his mother out, then Irene, then his father.

The drawing room was utterly packed, filled to the brim with Forsytes on that Sunday, all come to meet the woman engaged to marry him. Had it been like this the first time round? He thought it had, perhaps, been worse. Then the story had been that she’d refused him five times, and he’d been half-cracked about her. Soames had heard that whispered by Aunt Juley, if he recalled correctly. They’d thought it odd that he’d been in love. They had forgotten what it was like to be in love, he suspected, or had never been in love. Though grand passion was perhaps beyond the ordinary; not everyone seemed to experience it in their lives. The intensity of his feelings for Irene had seemed far beyond what his sister had felt for Dartie. They’d talked about that once, the first time round, on an evening when he and Winifred had both had a touch more to drink than usual. She’d been surprised by what he’d said he felt. Half-cracked? His family might describe grand passion that way, for it was un-Forsytean in its extremes.

He kept many things hidden inside, he supposed, lest his family comment.

Introductions began, managed smoothly by his mother. Aunt Ann first, the oldest of them all, a child of the last century. Soames, who’d seen a good way into the next, wondered what his aunts would have made of aeroplanes and poison gas, and decided to be content they hadn’t lived to see them. Irene gave Aunt Ann a brilliant smile and said that her dear Soames had advised her to speak to Aunt Ann specially, and say that she had made her wish for him come true. This set her off on the right foot with Aunt Ann, which set her off on the right foot with the room.

Uncle Jolyon reacted as he had the first time, with easy gallantry about her beauty and a question about her playing. He asked if she preferred Beethoven or Schubert, to which she replied that the question was unfair, and if she had to choose one she would simply baffle his game by choosing Liszt. This reply pleased him greatly.

There was Aunt Juley whispering to Aunt Hester about something, and Hester hushing her. There was Swithin admiring her with frank and bold eyes, so openly carnal as to be almost amusing, and being charmed by an Irene who did not choose to be offended by the old man in the least. There was Roger standing next to Nicholas, glaring at Irene suspiciously, as if he were considering turning her over the authorities as an agent provocateur. What they were saying to each other he could not guess at, nor could he rescue Irene from whatever conversation she was engaged in with their wives. They had all been introduced now by his mother, and Irene had smiled at all of them and said something graceful or witty or both, and the family information brokers were now weighing her every word and negotiating its value and attempting to decide what to make of her. Her dress was not quite the thing, not the fashion, and not the best fabric, but the colour was in perfect taste, and her hair was just so and her manners were most excellent. Inconclusive, they said. They’d need to see her at a dinner.

Her gloves were good, he heard Mrs Roger say, from somewhere behind him, and another woman noted that this would be Emily’s doing, then Francie said that it didn’t matter, she’d look good no matter what she wore, even nothing, at which he heard Young Roger bark out a laugh. He turned round to glare and caught George doing the same. They exchanged a sardonic look with each other and Soames turned back to the room. He would leave Roger to George’s tender mercies.

Soames went over to Aunt Ann and crouched next to her, so he could speak quietly. He said, “You told me at my sister’s wedding you wished you could someday see me as happy.”

She tapped him with her fan. “Indeed I did, and as your dear Miss Heron said, it seems I have had my wish granted. Soames, you were such a solemn boy, and here you are quite transformed. She is delightful.”

“She is,” he said.

“She is a pianist, you said?”

“Yes.”

“Perhaps we might persuade her to play for us.”

Soames glanced aside at the piano at the side of the drawing room, about which he had warned Irene, and said to his aunt, “I’m sure all you need do is ask.”

He kissed his aunt’s hand and ended their tête-à-tête, and indeed in the next moment Aunt Ann was calling for dear Miss Heron to play something for them.

She advanced to the piano and began removing her gloves. Soames received them from her and retreated a few steps. Irene sat. “I think Uncle Jolyon will know what I am about to play, and can tell you all about it.”

She then began to play something Soames had not heard before, but thought was perhaps Beethoven by process of elimination only. It was lovely—lyrical, singing, warm, sweet. It was speaking to him, to his surprise. He stood perfectly still and watched her face and strove to hear what he could and feel what he could.

Uncle Jolyon stepped up next to him silently and stood equally still, listening intently. Someone spoke behind them and Soames felt a moment of pure rage that they would interrupt. His uncle looked at him sidelong. Soames did not react. He knew what Old Jolyon was thinking. There was nothing to be done about it while she was playing.

The piece reached its conclusion, and the room applauded politely, Old Jolyon and Francie particularly loudly.

“Another, please,” said Francie.

“Very well,” Irene said.

She looked towards Uncle Jolyon and smiled. After what she had done with Parkes there was no telling what she would play, but she did not stray from safety. Instead she played something Soames knew quite well by this point: a Schubert impromptu. Easy to play; easy to like. Nothing difficult for a crowd of Forsytes. Uncle Jolyon also knew the piece, and the expression on his face said that he recognized her skill in playing it.

When she was done, Soames took her hand for a moment and raised it to his lips. She smiled at him, and that was a sparkle in her eyes he would never tire of. That was something he’d earned only in this life, that he’d longed for and never seen in his previous life, not from a single woman ever. But this time! She gave it to him any time they looked at each other, even in public like this. Soames returned her gloves to her.

Here came his uncle, beaming with pleasure. While her expression was still warm, it did not have that special sparkle that was only ever for him. He stood watching her talk to his uncle, her hands once more hidden by gloves. He was not so much listening to their words as feeling the hum of warmth between them. His uncle already liked her, and she him. He swam in that warmth, unthinking, unworried, dreaming of holding her hand.

“I thought you were going to choose Liszt!”

“At the last moment I decided I would give you both Beethoven and Schubert. Did I decide well?”

“That you did, Miss Heron, that you did.”

“Soames is particularly fond of the Schubert,” Irene said, touching his arm, and he was forced to wake from his daydream.

“I am,” he said, “but Irene has not played the Beethoven for me before.”

Old Jolyon harrumphed. “Didn’t think you cared for music at all.”

“Listening to Irene play has taught me a great deal.”

“First I see you kind to dogs, and next I see you enjoying Beethoven and Schubert. What have you done to this boy, Miss Heron? He’s unrecognisable.”

The word “boy” rankled, for in his own head Soames was not all that much younger than his uncle, but he bit his tongue and sat on his temper, lest he deserve it. What would it profit him to speak sharply to his uncle? Nothing at all, particularly since Irene seemed once again to be taking a liking to him. His uncle then went on to quiz Irene about opera. She had only heard French opera, she said, and he immediately made a case for German, which she was open to hearing if she had the chance. His uncle then declared that if Soames would not take her to the opera then he would, at which Soames protested that he had not yet had a single opportunity to do so. Irene replied that she would be delighted to attend the opera with both of them, provided they swore to be courteous to each other in her presence, at which the two men ruefully promised to do so.

This was his punishment for telling her they didn’t get on, he supposed.

Irene excused herself to speak to Uncle Nicholas, who was beckoning her over. Soames watched her listen to Nicholas and answer a question, then listen to something Roger was telling her.

“Not following her around?” said Old Jolyon.

“She’s doing well enough without me,” Soames said.

“You look pleased as punch.”

“Should I not be?”

“I suppose you should,” Old Jolyon said. “See you treat her properly. A woman who can play Schubert like that is a woman who deserves to be cared for.”

“On this we agree, Uncle.”

Old Jolyon gave him that sharp look again. “She’s changed you a great deal, and all for the better if I may say so.”

Soames clenched his jaw briefly, and formulated then bit back five cutting retorts, before finally merely thanking his uncle. He stepped back into a corner, away from the fray, and continued watching quietly.

In the barouche on the way back to Park Lane, he leaned close to Irene and said, “You did well.”

“Thank you. And thank you for the warning about the piano.”

“I wasn’t sure what you’d want to know.”

“Saying you needed to warn me was enough.” She smiled at him, and he was relieved.

“The Beethoven?”

“Ah. The second movement of his opus 13, the one called Pathétique. Shall I play it again for you when we are home?”

“Please.”

---

Emily Forsyte sat at her writing desk the next morning. She selected a clean sheet of octavo paper of the palest lavender and set it down just so. She owed a letter to Fanny—Mrs Nicholas—and needed to write it this morning. She could hear from downstairs her future daughter-in-law practising the piano, as she did every morning. Irene had apologised for this, saying that it could be tedious to listen to, but Emily had reassured her immediately that she was not to worry about it, but instead to practise all she liked. The sound was, to Emily’s ear, comforting. It was like having Winifred at home as a girl, practising her pieces. It was almost like having children in the house again. Though Irene was not a child, mind. She was a young lady going to marry her son, her odd, awkward, prickly, completely reliable Soames.

It was rather delightful having Irene visit. It had the advantage of bringing Soames home every night they dined at home, and every day for tea. They hadn’t seen much of him since he’d moved out into his own rooms, shortly after Winifred’s marriage. James was soothed by seeing both of them, and Emily herself by the look on Soames’s face when he thought nobody was watching him.

Emily dipped her pen into ink. She started off by writing that she thought that Irene’s introduction at Timothy’s had gone quite well, though her clothes were not ready yet and wouldn’t be for another few weeks. The dear girl had lovely manners, and had looked well in all her fittings. She would make a splash once she was dressed properly.

The change in Soames, she wrote, was remarkable—he seemed happy for once, and to be interested in something other than work.

Emily touched her hand to her chest for a moment, thinking of the moment she’d walked in on them holding hands and kissing each other before dinner. Soames had obviously just given her that lovely brooch, and Irene was just as obviously thanking him sweetly. It was so satisfying to see him in love like this. She’d been hoping for so long he would find somebody, and at last he had.

Another dip of pen into ink. Emily continued writing: It was such a relief to finally meet the girl after Soames had spent all those months courting her, and discover she was so lovely and graceful. He’d started speaking to strangers at dinner parties, which was another relief. One did so fret over one’s children, only to find that they were doing perfectly well all along.

Speaking of difficult sons, she’d heard that Archibald was thinking of joining the Militia—surely not? His father would never have it. Was there not a profession he had in mind?

---

They were down to breakfast in the dining room at Timothy’s, quite alone because Smither had taken a tray up to Ann. Hester served herself eggs and bacon and sat down next to Juley. They put their heads together though there was no need to.

“What did you make of her?” Hester whispered.

Juley reached for the sugar bowl. “Well, of course she has no money at all—not a penny—but the poor girl cannot help that.”

Hester shook her head. “James is quite worried and I can’t blame him. He says Soames has thrown his cap over the windmill.”

Juley poured milk into her breakfast tea. “So pretty, though, one can hardly blame him. He has such an eye for that sort of thing, such a collector. What did Francie say about her hair? Couleur de feuille morte.”

“And then to say that she would have looked good no matter what she wore, even nothing.” Hester pressed a hand against her shocked breast.

“Young Roger was quite rude about that. And so was Eustace. Francie would not tell me what they said, only that it was ungentlemanly of them.”

Hester took her hand off her breast and took a generous forkful of eggs. “George was most upset. He thinks very highly of her. Taken quite a liking to her, they say.”

“George to be a groomsman—such a turn of events. I thought he and Soames didn’t get on.”

“Oh, George is so unpredictable. But Miss Heron is quite a skilled musician, such an excellent performance she gave, so tasteful. Jolyon was most impressed.”

“I do hope she doesn’t embarrass Soames by playing in public or giving concerts in France. One never knows what the French are going to do.”

“True, so true.” Hester absorbed some devilled kidneys and shook her head solemnly.

---

George Forsyte sat in the smoking room of the Hotch Potch with a glass of whisky and an unlit cigar. He wasn’t much in the mood for smoking. He wanted to sit and contemplate in a mellow way the fortunes of his day. His father had been angry about the gambling again, and sent his older brother to shout it out of him again, so he’d immediately gone racing again. He had won a tenner on a race in the early afternoon, and then doubled the tenner in the following race, and for once tucked the money away instead of immediately betting it into oblivion. He wasn’t sure why. It had been an odd week. He crossed and recrossed his knees.

Sitting in a chair in the opposite corner of the room was his cousin Jolyon, smoking a cigarette and reading a newspaper. He looked elegant and good-looking as ever in evening dress. The fellow had a position at Lloyd’s and was making his own way, they said, completely without an allowance from his father. Cut out. Disowned. A damned fool about women, he was, falling in love and then abandoning his wife. Married again, two families started.

The Forsytes stuck together. That was what was so odd about Uncle Jolyon casting his son out. For a moment George was tempted to go ask his cousin how he was doing, if wife and son were well, if he could take any scrap of news back to Aunt Ann, from whence it would reach Uncle Jolyon. It wasn’t done, so he did not do it. Instead he chewed on the end of his cigar.

George himself did nothing with his time. Did he know how to do anything at all? He’d tried farming, but had quit that on account of a broken heart courtesy of the married woman in the neighbouring house, not to mention complete indifference to agriculture. Now he suspected he might need to find an occupation. He’d called on a young lady twice during the week, and this was the origin of a revelation in outlook that he simply had not expected. What would he do if he had to produce an income suddenly the way Cousin Jo had? He rather wished a fellow could make a living arranging the wines and menus of a club; he had rather more fun doing that for the Hotch Potch informally than he had even from going to the races.

If he stopped betting on horses and started putting away capital, could he improve his income?

Cousin Soames seemed to have had a plan the whole time for what he would do to provide for Miss Heron, and who could blame the man? She was lovely and deuced inspiring.

Cousin Soames was pure distilled essence of Forsyte, bottled and corked. So odd that he was the one who’d imported the wild artist back into the family’s heart. George understood fully why he’d fallen for her. She had worked hard to be where she was, and Soames was the sort of man who’d appreciate that. And she was warm, and beautiful, and kind to her friends, who both adored her. George had now heard from Miss Béranger two panegyrics about Irene. He would cheerfully hear another twenty, or anything at all she cared to say, really. He did so wish that his father did not suspect and fear the French quite as much as he did.

George took the cigar out of his mouth and contemplated the soggy chewed end. He had been eating them nervously more than smoking them this week. Maybe he’d call on his cousin and ask for advice. He’d taken a facer here.

---

Montague Dartie, man of the world, drew on his cigar and puffed out smoke expansively. He leaned on his cue, watching a club friend at the Iseeum knock the balls around with casual skill, tempered by a mere two brandies. Dartie himself was two and a half brandies in, and therefore ready to broach his main topic for the evening, which was a frank discussion of the girl his brother-in-law had been chasing after for months.

“We all knew he’d been chasing some girl down there, and we had no idea why. Freddie’s father kept saying she had no money, so what’s the attraction? Let me tell you, Tolly, we found out. The girl’s a stunner.”

Tolly looked at the cue ball, considered a shot, then reconsidered and chalked. “They’re all good-looking when they’re seventeen,” he said.

“No, you have no concept of it. This one is beyond that, a girl who’ll be a looker all her life. Dark eyes, gold hair, creamy skin, artist’s curves. Perfection. You can’t find girls with her looks in town because every fellow in the world has beaten you to it.”

“Made a conquest of you, anyway.” The balls clicked, and another one went into the pocket nearest where Dartie was standing.

“Not ashamed to say it, either. Freddie’s brother has an eye, got to hand it to him. What she sees in him, I’ll never know. He’s as stiff as a poker. Not the sort of man you want to drink with.”

“You mean he won’t lend you money.” Tolly lined up another shot.

Dartie showed no signs of noticing this cut; his eyes were closed and his face lifted in fleshly rapture. “Her waist! Her bare shoulders! Her bosom in an evening dress! God, Tolly.”

“Language, Dartie, careful now.” Tolly’s shot missed. “Damn. Well, can’t wait to get an eyeful of her.”

Dartie grinned a white-toothed grin at his friend, who grinned back. “I’ll get you a wedding invitation. Plenty of room on her side of the aisle, I dare say. Bright side is, she’ll tire of him soon enough.”

---

Winifred unwrapped her tea gown and held little Publius to her breast. He looked up at her as he nursed, and she looked down at him, gazing deep into his blue-grey eyes. He was her son, and she did love him so. He was doing quite well, according to nurse, growing just as he ought. Winifred herself was relieved that feedings were now spaced out enough that she was almost sleeping through the night. The first anxieties of motherhood had settled into comfortable routine. She could cradle Publius in her arms with ease, now, where she’d once been afraid of dropping him, or of not knowing what to do.

She was almost bored, in fact.

She’d got through quite a few novels in the last two months. Beside her chair was her current one from Mudie’s, bookmarked with a strip of ribbon. They’d sent her the second volume of Moths, and she was reading with enjoyment under which ran a deep, unspoken current of unease. Ouida was usually quite fun, full of adventure and jewels and exotic places, not quite believable, but then, who read novels for believability? The heroine of this one was married to a dissolute Russian prince who drank, gambled, and kept mistresses, so she was unhappy and sought love outside the marriage. Quite exotic.

It was good to be able to get out of the house now and then. She had been able to dine at Park Lane to meet Soames’s fiancée, which had been delightful: delightful to be able to leave the house, delightful to sit down to one of her mother’s dinners, delightful to have a good long talk with Irene. It had been so wonderful to see how Soames looked at her, and how she looked at him. Her brother deserved someone to care for him. He was an awkward, silent man, and always had been, but he was thoughtful and careful and a good brother. He was quietly generous when he thought nobody was looking at him. She was very solidly on Soames’s side.

Irene was gorgeous, just as Soames had said. Winifred remembered what she’d looked like on Monty’s arm on the way in to dinner, smiling at him graciously, accepting his compliments, keeping herself at a polite distance. Monty’s eyes had been roving, and Winifred knew it. On the one hand, it was understandable. Men would want to look at a woman like that. On the other, it was a bit much to stare at a woman’s bosom while walking just in front of her fiancé and your own wife.

Was that what Soames had meant when he’d made that odd comment? He didn’t miss much. Monty had drunk too much that night. So had Irene’s step-father, and she’d seen Soames’s face when the fellow had gone over to the piano and fondled Irene. The other thing about her brother was that when he was angry, he could be frightening. Monty did drink too much sometimes. And he gambled. And he hadn’t paid for her pearls.

Publius was done feeding and was now content. He lay in her arms making babbling sounds and smiling at her. Winifred smiled down at him. The nursemaid came over to check and take Publius from her arms. She did so dislike releasing him to the nursemaid sometimes. He was her beloved boy.

Winifred sighed and buttoned up her tea gown. There was no point fretting. Monty came home every night. He called her Freddie, kissed her, and talked about Publius with pride. He’d merely looked at the most beautiful woman Winifred herself had ever seen and appreciated her.

She picked up volume two of Moths to find out what happened to Vere next.

---

Old Jolyon sat by the fireside in Stanhope Gate, all on his own. June was at school, learning what a lady ought to learn, or rather, what June herself thought she ought to learn, for June had most decided opinions of her own. Where she got it, he had no idea.

He had in his hand a glass of sherry, good sherry, for he would have nothing else in his house. He was in a contemplative mood, thinking over the week. That boy, James’s son, had grown up. He’d brought his fiancée to Timothy’s and she’d been a wonderful young woman, warm and talented. That jest about Liszt had been affectionate: she loved all three of the composers and would play all three of them if he asked, he knew it, and Schumann besides.

He drank some sherry, and smiled a little to himself, thinking of Irene and Schubert. Such a lovely woman, and such a touch in her playing. The boy had seemed to understand this and appreciate it as he ought, and for once have his tendency to sulk under control. It still rankled that the son of James, that rattling collection of nerves, should be so obviously on the path of success, while his son was the blackest of black sheep. But it was hardly Soames’s fault, was it? It was his son who was to blame for his own failures. Soames had at least been respectful the last two times they had spoken.

Irene had been simply lovely. He would take her to the opera, and she would appreciate it properly, and that lad would as well, apparently. He needed to have them to dinner. It would keep him busy while June was away.

---

In the train, 2nd May Dear Soames, I write from the train, as you can perhaps tell from my handwriting. I am so sorry to be leaving London, and your mother’s gracious hospitality. I am so sorry to be travelling away from you. Every mile south the train steams is a mile I feel in my heart. It was such a pleasure to meet your family. So many of them! So many personalities! I loved best the dinner with your two groomsmen, Mr Parkes and your cousin George, and my two friends from the Conservatoire. It was such a joyous night. Lucie has written to me to say that George has called on her since, which I think is quite sweet; he has been a surprising and affectionate acquaintance to make. Your sister is so loyal to you. Your family seems to think you the best sort of young man imaginable, especially Aunt Ann. She is a force of nature, and I’m not sure who is the head of the family: she or your uncle Jolyon. Speaking of which, he was charming and wonderful as well. I hope we shall be able to take him up on the offer of hearing the opera. Please do ensure you know the schedule so we can plan for what is to be performed this summer. I am also deeply happy we have found a house to live in. It felt right to me. Please tell me all about the renovation work as it proceeds. I have a catalogue from Liberty’s and another with papers from Mr Morris that I think are most lovely. Perhaps we might be able to consider these? What happens next? It was a revelation to see you with your close family instead of visiting mine. You are relaxed with them in a way you never are with my step-parents. You look at them with such love when you kiss them goodbye. I suspect you think you are hiding it, but I have learned to read your face. Please write to me often. I miss your voice already. Affectionately yours, Irene

---

XVIII. Correspondence

It was the beginning of May, and spring was in its fullest flower, but Soames was bereft and morose, for Irene had returned to Lymington. He occupied himself with arranging alterations to the house: two more water-closets, a bathroom with a gas geyser, anything he could do to modernise it and give it more of the comforts he had begun to miss keenly from his past, or his future, whichever it was. These would be finished by the end of the month, and they would need to have the decorations in motion by then. Irene would have to be in London again soon to consult with him about those. Not soon enough for him: he missed her daily, and it was tempting to write to her daily and tell her so.

Two days without her and he was quite certain he would not last out the month. He returned to his chambers on the Tuesday evening fully ready to feel sorry for himself. He poured a drink and sat down by the fire to sort his correspondence, and found two letters from her. Two! Both dated the second—one written on the train, and the second written when she was back home.

Lymington, 2nd May Dear Soames, The train journey was uneventful. I thought once again about how you took that trip every weekend to see me, saying nothing about how long it was, giving me no sign of what you were willing to do to see me. It was odd to return home to meet my step-mama again. She was almost happy to see me, and I almost to see her, until I heard her voice raised. Your mother is so comforting in comparison. I cannot imagine her voice raised. Nor can I imagine your father standing over me while I practise. When my mama was alive, we lived in London, near enough to the neighbourhood we are to live in that I walked often in Kensington Gardens. There is a bench near the Round Pond where I sat one afternoon after her death, and felt that I would be all right, as though nothing had changed. I should like to walk there with you some day. I thought of this when I walked this afternoon along the beach to take exercise after the time on the train. The sea is so restless and wild, and the Round Pond so quietly safe. I have picked up a Beethoven sonata again as a project—the Appassionata. I have an edition of his sonatas from my Conservatoire days, all covered with my own notes and my teacher’s notes on top of those, so much writing that I can barely read the music itself! Reading the notes makes me remember that time with so much affection. I wish to live up to my teacher’s hope for me, that we might find that spark and ignite that volcano, and that I should find in myself both the technique and the interpretation. Affectionately yours, Irene

What ought he to write back? He felt it would be ridiculous to tell her simply that he missed her every time he wrote, so he searched for other things to tell her, things she might not think to ask about, or odd things he encountered during the day, the sort of thing he might tell her about if they were together and talking over dinner or sitting beside the fire. He did not write back immediately, but waited until the next evening, when he’d been to the house to inspect the progress.

Victoria Street, 4th May My dear Irene, I visited the house today. The walls are stripped bare. The oak plank floors are pale with dust. All is white: the plaster, the dust, the heavy canvas draped over the stair rails. The morning light streams in from the street to the south and warms the rooms. Dust floats in the light shafts. I almost want to leave it like this, undecorated, and hang paintings against the white, so they can be seen as they are, without distraction. Or perhaps we could do as the Italians did, and paint the plaster itself. I walked to my office this morning, east from Westminster to the Poultry. There is a moment when, if I am walking north from the Thames, the dome of St Paul’s comes into sight gilded by morning sunlight. We are busy building up all around it, but this city has moments of beauty remaining and this is one. I wonder what it looked like forty years ago, and forty years before that. Paintings are the only hope we have of remembering now. Our posterity has photographs, I suppose. Your letters arrived. I can imagine your voice speaking the words to me, and miss you a little less. I look forward to visiting Liberty’s with you. It will be a delight. Of course we may consider the Morris papers, if you think them suitable. I am, yours most sincerely, S. Forsyte

He sent with this letter the complete edition of the Mozart piano sonatas he’d found for her when she had mentioned she had little Mozart.

Irene’s reply was all about Mozart, and his life. He had died young, like Schubert had. The world had been denied so much music because of that death, she felt. He remembered she’d said Mozart was like champagne for her: bubbles in the glass, sweet and joyous. She told him that she had been playing the thirteenth sonata when he’d first heard Mozart, and it was quite famous. There were at least two others she wanted to play for him. She concluded with another story about a walk, this one away from the coast and into countryside and farmland, into the green hedgerows and little gardens of the smaller towns in from the seaside resorts.

His reply included a clean copy of the Beethoven Appassionata, fresh from Augener’s, which edition the now-familiar assistant assured him was the edition Clara Schumann had played. This was the rhythm of their correspondence: he would send her music early in the week, so that she might have it learned if he was able to visit on the weekend, or if she were able to visit his parents in London instead, escorted by her step-mother. She would write to him when she had received it, to tell him what she had played first, or what her reactions were if the music were new, how her morning practising went. She would tell him about her walks, the seabirds she’d seen, about the sea or the town. He would write about his own walks through the city, or a painting he had seen and thought about, whether he liked it or disliked it. He wrote to her about warning Dumetrius against a fake Constable; Dumetrius argued at first then ruefully agreed he’d been fooled. She sent him pressed flowers. He sent her a Fauré nocturne recommended by the assistant at Augener’s. He worked, he walked, he sat in his chambers at night reading or working or simply thinking, he looked through his correspondence in hope every morning.

Later in the month, this letter arrived in his morning correspondence:

Lymington, 22nd May Dear Soames, The Beethoven clean print was a most wonderful gift. I have been working on the first movement diligently; a measure at a time it unlocks itself to me. I was lonely today. I walked east this afternoon hoping to ease my heart, but found nothing. I always return to a quiet house. There is no conversation, no laughter. I thought about your hands on your notebook, fingers splayed holding it flat on the piano while you write, learning the name of a new piece, then your little smile when you look at me afterwards, so delighted. Yours, Irene

Soames read this and his heart hurt. He couldn’t eat; he could barely choke down his tea. He walked to his office automatically, thinking about her, wondering what to do. Ought he to get on a train south? He ought not, but he wanted to do it, to sit with her, saying nothing at all, simply being with her.

He sat in his office completely distracted and distressed. He couldn’t work. What was he to do? He returned to his chambers again, because he was useless. Why did he let her be so far away?

He pulled out pen and paper and pushed his fear aside to write.

Victoria Street, 24th May My dear Irene, The first time I saw you, you were playing what you said was a love song by Robert Schumann for Clara, the version for the piano by Liszt. I remember both you and the music so intensely. I fell in love with you at that moment. I looked it up later, in Augener’s, and learned its title. I read the poem; it is passionate indeed. I feel it deeply. Could you tell me what “Widmung” means to you? And could you tell me about Clara Schumann? I know that she is one of the greatest pianists alive, but I do not know anything more. Could you tell me of any music you wish for especially that I might find for you? It gives me great pleasure to do this. Yours, S.

He received her reply Thursday evening, and tore it open with a finger, unable to wait to find his paper-knife. It was the longest letter he’d yet received from her.

Lymington, 25th May My dear Soames, We do belong to each other now, dear heart. Clara Wieck is the daughter of a piano teacher who taught her most strictly from childhood on. She was a child prodigy who played throughout Europe. Her performance of the Appassionata at eighteen was said to be stunning. She impressed Chopin and Liszt, and Schumann himself so much he stopped studying law to concentrate on the piano only. He also studied under Clara’s father. They were married despite her father’s opposition. They had eight children, and Clara did not tour while raising them. She and Brahms are said to be great friends, after the Schumanns discovered him. Robert died young, and Clara never remarried. She tours Europe once again, and sometimes comes to London in the spring. I should so very much like to hear her play next time she comes. When I learned of Clara Schumann as a little girl, I began practising even harder than I had before, trying to be like her. It was thrilling to think of, to play such gorgeous music with deep understanding and love, to be able to share it with others. It’s so rare to be able to hear music like the Appassionata sonata. One either attends a concert in a city like London or Paris or Vienna, or one is lucky enough to have a friend with rare talent. I believe that if you are someone with that ability inside you, it is a duty to try to awaken it, so that the beauty of music might be shared. I know that I don’t have her skill. I am eighteen, and I cannot play the Appassionata through. Instead I still work to earn its first movement. I think I have it in me to earn it, and so I shall persist. The “Widmung” is a particularly lovely piece. It has its difficult passages, but is rewarding. The lied is more romantic, sweeter. Liszt turns it into something dramatic and intense, truly passionate. And the words, yes, the poem is intensity itself and the song matches it. Clara gave up touring for Robert, and must have loved him as much as he loved her. I am afraid to tell you how much music I want. You will think me greedy, for the answer is all of it. But in truth, not jest: I wish for what Brahms you can find. Then do please look for whatever Liszt has made of Wagner’s Ring. These operas have not been performed in London, but I should like to play them on piano and hear for myself what the fuss is about. I miss you so much. Your letter was a comfort. I look forward to talking to you in person this weekend about something that is making me uneasy. Yours, Irene

Soames’s thumb moved for his ring unconsciously. This letter made him feel even more unhappy than the previous one had. Something was wrong. She was clear about it. The weekend, she said. He was instructed to come for the weekend, but not before. He wanted to go immediately. He could go immediately: there was a night train, and he could be at her door at first light in the morning. But she had said the weekend, and meant it.

He went to bed, restless and unhappy, and slept badly. In the morning he went to Augener’s to look for what she’d requested.

Victoria Street, 27th May My dear Irene, I shall be there Saturday by the earliest express, and I shall offer a steady arm for you to hold. I am your solemn watchman, after all. I shall bring you new music. I also intend to write to your step-mother to propose a celebratory dinner at the Angel Inn on Saturday, to return their kind hospitality over this last year. I will watch the concert schedules for Clara Schumann and for Wagner. It is your conversation I miss most during the week. I want to turn to you to ask a question or point out something I saw to learn what you think of it, and I cannot. It took so little time to feel that your company every day is the natural order of things; I should like it to be so again. Yours, S.

He then wrote a mechanical letter to her step-mother proposing dinner, and posted both letters from his office. The letters should arrive in Lymington before him, but only just.

XIX. Irene plays Chopin

Soames indeed caught the first express to Lymington on the Saturday, which got him down there coincident with the morning edition of the Times, far earlier than he ever had arrived normally. And so it was that mid-morning on Saturday, long before luncheon, Soames called at the home the Lomaxes leased, top hat in hand, and smiled without reservation to see the somewhat surprised little maid Millie before him.

“I think Miss Heron is expecting me,” he said.

“Yes, sir, she is in the drawing room.”

“Thank you. Don’t try to hang my coat. I have it.”

Soames went into the drawing room eagerly, for he could hear her playing there. He didn’t know what she was playing; he didn’t think he’d heard it before. He had a bundle of music in his hand to give to her, because he would never make the trip to Lymington without music in his hand again. He shut the door behind himself carefully, quietly, and stole forward on silent footsteps. He saw her look up briefly and then down again. She was focused on whatever it was that she was reading in front of her: she did not know it nearly as well as anything else she normally played, and it was difficult enough to require concentration. He saw her lift her right hand and turn the page and miss something in the notes.

In the next moment he had come round behind her on her left, watching where she was looking. There were at least two more page turns, he thought. The trick was figuring out when the moment came. The printing on this page was so dense! It was like mathematical notation only more cramped. There was some reason to it, though. He could see that there were groups of things at the top that matched groups of keys she pressed with her right hand. It was not rapid, however, because of how much ink was on the page. How long had it taken her to learn to read all this? And there, she was at the bottom of the page, and—

“Now,” Irene said.

He turned the page, and Irene continued playing smoothly. Soames felt extremely pleased with himself. When the next turn came, he was ready and poised for her signal.

When she was finished, he said, “I need to do this for you every time you play.”

“It didn’t occur to me to ask until recently. You can’t read music.”

“Indeed I can’t. I can look where you’re looking, though.”

“It’s true, you can,” she said. “You may turn pages for me any time you wish.”

“It would be an honour. This is the Appassionata, I see.”

“Yes! The first movement. I have been working at it, thanks to your gift. This week I felt a new passage open up under my hands—technique and meaning both. It was a revelation! I thought about writing to you about it, and then I decided to save it for you when you came.”

Soames looked down and swallowed. “I’m glad I arrived in time to hear it. Thank you.”

“Thank you so much for that clean copy of the score. It has been such a help.”

“You are most welcome.”

He could see the happiness on her face and he felt a warm glow inside himself that could not be matched by anything else in his experience. He had given Irene what she longed for most, what she needed, not what he wanted, and his reward was this expression on her face. Then it came to him: he’d forgotten something. He scrambled for the little packet of sheet music he’d dropped upon the floor when leaping to her side to turn pages. He handed it over to her shyly.

“You said you wanted this.”

“Liszt’s Walhall—Soames! You found it! And this after sending me Fauré! How on earth did you know I would like the Fauré at all?”

“The fellow at Augener’s again, the shop that has all the latest things from the Continent. I told him everything you’d ever mentioned to me and asked him what you’d want to play next.”

“You have written down everything I’ve—”

“I’ve been keeping notes a long time.”

“Soames!”

He had been writing it all down in his little notebook from his first time round. Why he’d done that, he couldn’t remember now, because he’d done nothing at all with the notes, but his older, wiser, more thoughtful self had put it to good use. He’d been an odd chap, his younger self had, a rum fellow, or whatever George had called him. He supposed he was still one now, just one softened by somebody having loved him a little bit.

He said, “The fellow at Augener’s is the one who suggested the Grieg and the Brahms. After that I decided he knew what he was about, and told him more about what you liked. He suggested the Fauré after that.” He smiled with real pleasure at the thought of giving her more music, of getting that response from her again. It was everything he had wanted when he’d given her brooches before.

“Soames, I am moved that you go to such lengths to find things for me.”

“It’s nothing at all.”

“I can’t believe that you would say that. Surely it was time out of your day—”

“It was nothing.” He stepped closer to Irene. “What’s a nocturne?”

Irene gave him a look, as if to say she knew how clumsily he was changing the subject. “Nothing more than a composition inspired by the night. They can vary from each other greatly, but they are often lyrical. Some of my favourite pieces are nocturnes.”

“Ah,” Soames said. “I hope it is good. The fellow in the shop had not played it.”

“I know of Fauré, of course, but I have not played much of his work. And the Liszt transcriptions of Wagner—Soames, I’ve had more new music to play in the last two months than in the entire time since I left the Conservatoire.”

He smiled and bounced on his toes a little bit, quite proud of himself. He’d chosen all the right things, and pulled it off. He could adapt; he could learn from his mistakes. He could do better this time round.

“What should I play for you?” she asked.

He turned serious then, reminding himself of why he had come so early in the day, by the very first express. He said, “Where are your step-parents?”

“Doing business in town. They know you are to visit today, so please do not think your presence is unexpected.”

Soames touched her arm. “Irene. Now I must ask you. What is it that is better said in person?”

Her smile died, and she did not answer him.

“Irene, please tell me. I know that something is wrong.”

She sighed deeply. “You are right. Something is wrong.”

“Tell me. Please. I wish to help.”

Irene turned away from him and faced the keys of the piano. She placed her fingers on them and moved them without playing any notes. He’d seen her do that before. Her version of a nervous gesture, perhaps? She sighed, then said, “My step-father has been… giving me unwanted attention for some time now. I thought I was imagining it at first. I might still be imagining it. He does these things in front of my step-mama, and she doesn’t complain.”

“What does he do?” he said, very softly.

“At first it was embraces. Kisses on the cheek. Things a step-father might do, things that I found comforting and warm, things that made me feel better because they reminded me of my own papa when he was alive. But it took a turn. He has started holding me closer than I want, longer than I want. I thought he was just being blustery and insensitive and had no ill intent.”

Very carefully, speaking as calmly and quietly as he could, he said, “When did this start? The touching?”

“Before he and my step-mama were married.”

He’d known it. He’d seen she was unhappy about the marriage from the start, but he hadn’t seen why. “When did it take a turn?”

“The night I came home from staying with your parents. He came into my bedroom just as I was starting to change for bed. He asked me if I was quite certain I wanted to marry you. He said he wanted to be sure I was making the right decision—you were a cold legal sort, and maybe not the man for me. It would have seemed very kind of him, but he was, he was—holding me more closely than I wanted. And after that night in the city, I—”

He felt that disconnection from his body for a moment, that anger that knew no bounds or limits. He attempted to haul himself back in. It would do Irene no good. He would keep his head. Anger was not the thing for this. He uncurled his fist and winced. His fingernails had bitten into his palm and drawn blood. He ignored it.

“What did you do?” he said, quite calmly.

“I went out into the hall and into their room, and started brushing my step-mama’s hair. She was happy to have the attention and he wouldn’t dare touch me in front of her.”

Soames felt his hand clench again, but he still felt quite controlled and icy. “Clever.”

“He left me alone the next night, but then my step-mama was out of the house and he came by while I was practising in the morning. I got ahead of him, and told him I was quite certain you were the right man for me. He told me it was a pity, because he could tell I was hot-blooded and needed a man who understood that. And then he left. He’s said nothing since, but I don’t—he’s still looking at me.”

“You’ve said enough,” Soames said, and took her hand, very gently. “I shall talk to my mother. When you come up to London for your next long visit, you won’t come back down here again.”

“But where will I live?”

“With my parents. You’ll stay with them until the wedding. He’ll be down here with your step-mother. He’ll come up to give you away for the wedding and that’ll be the last you have to see of him. Unless there’s anybody else who could do that. Do you have an uncle?”

“No. There is no one else.”

“Damn,” he said, and that was his entire chest aching for her sake. He kissed her hand then held it over his heart. “Is there a lock on your door?”

“No.”

Soames’s chest felt as if it had been struck, but his face did not move. “Leave your window open,” he said, calmly. “You must be ready to scream.”

“I understand.”

“He won’t risk your step-mother knowing. He’ll try you if he thinks you will yield easily to him. So do not.”

“I think I can do this. But Soames—”

“Yes?”

“What if my step-mother is not home?”

“Get out of the house. Immediately. Get on the next train to London.”

“I can’t—I don’t have—”

“Here.” Soames reached into his pockets and extracted six sovereigns from his sovereign case, and a handful of other coins. He had enough left for his own needs for the two days he’d be in Lymington. He pressed the coins into her hand.

“I couldn’t—”

“Yes, you can. This will get you to London and get you on a cab to Park Lane. You can send a telegram to me on the way if you have time to spare at the station. You have my card? No? Here. My firm. I’ll write my parents’ address on it so you cannot forget. Either of those will reach me.” He pulled out his stylographic pen and wrote, then gave her the card.

“Pack a bag now,” he said. “Keep the money somewhere safe and on your person, even when you sleep. The train fare is a pound first class. Don’t take second, do you hear? Two shillings for a cab to my parents’ house. I’ve given you more in case something goes wrong, in case you need lodgings. Do you understand?”

“Yes.” Irene tucked card and coins into a pocket of her dress. “I have a purse I can wear around my neck.”

“Repeat to me.”

“A pound for the train, two shillings for the cab to your parents’ home. There’ll be tips?”

“Tuppence, four if the fellow takes extra care of you.”

“I’ve travelled on my own, but not in London. Is there anything else?”

“The timetable. My copy is in my coat pocket hanging in the hall. You will take it before I leave. You should be safe once you’re on the train.” He paused and touched his fingers to his lips. Was there anything else to arrange for her? He thought better of something. “No, you are going to take the timetable now, lest we not have the chance later. I’m going to bring a telegram form for you tomorrow already filled out save for the arrival time of the train. It’ll take less time to send.”

He led her into the hall and found it in his outer coat pocket, exactly where it always was. He’d get another copy on his way home. “Repeat again.”

“Timetable,” she said. “A pound for the train, two shillings for the cab, send a telegram with my arrival time if I get the chance. Money on my person, pack a bag now. I’ll do something so the coins don’t jingle.”

“Clever again.”

“I’m going to take all this to my room.”

“I’ll be in the conservatory.”

Irene ran upstairs with the timetable. Soames paced noiselessly back into the drawing room, leaving the door open so he could hear her return. The anger was still there, simmering in him, but it was managed. What else ought he to do? He had given her the means to get on the train, and once there she would be secure. The danger would be if Lomax prevented her bodily, which he would not dare do. Would he? He might. His mind ran over the possibilities, ran over the remedies. He would speak to Lomax very briefly this evening, after dinner but not before, to let the fellow know what would happen to him if he touched Irene again.

Irene came back down the stairs and into the drawing room. “My bag is partly packed. I’ll finish it tonight, with the excuse that I’m preparing for my next visit.”

“Take only the things you cannot replace. Clothing and books don’t matter,” he said. There was something very cold and hard ruling his thinking at that moment. Irene needed protection; how would he arrange that? That was all that mattered to him. If at that moment Lomax had shown himself to him, Soames might simply have leapt for his throat. It was not undirected or indiscriminate; it was precise. He knew exactly what Irene ought to do. He knew exactly what had to happen.

Irene said, “Soames. You are frightening just now.”

“Frightening?”

“Your face. It’s nothing I’ve seen before from you. You are completely cold.”

Soames opened his mouth to say something, then closed it again. Was he cold just now? Yes. He was. He reached inside and found his gentlest voice for her. “Am I frightening you?”

“Yes. You are so very angry—I don’t know what you are about to do.”

“I won’t allow anyone to hurt you.”

She took his hand, and he pressed hers gently. She said, “This is a side of you I’ve never seen before. I’ve heard you speak heatedly before, but this anger is so controlled. As if your lawyer self were the one angry.”

Soames looked down at her hand in his. He was angry. He hadn’t been able to hide it. He would not insult her by denying it.

Soames released her hand, began pacing across the drawing room and back. He tried to keep himself steady. He could feel the after-effects of anger in himself, that queasy feeling and that tremor in his hands. He paced into the conservatory and back, head down, trying to breathe. He found himself fidgeting with his signet ring again, reaching for that inexplicable soothing he got from rubbing his thumb over its face. Calm down. Anger would not help. She needed his love, not his anger.

She was young. He found himself thinking that for the first time. He had thought her ineffable, unknowable before, but now he had begun to know her, and she was eighteen. She was set on doing things the way she wanted, because she was brave and determined, but she did not know men as he did. And as for him, he knew the world, but he was in a body that had the passions of a young man, and he was feeling them now. Anger, fear, an almost overwhelming desire to sweep her away and keep her safe, all coursing in his blood. He gnawed at a moustache that was not there, swore inwardly briefly, and found his signet ring again. He wanted to sit stroking it and thinking, but he could not.

He came to a halt before her in a calmer state, but still in need of his thumb on the ring. He forced himself to get that under control, and to put his hands at his sides.

“Irene,” he began, uncertain of what he meant to say. “This is—” He stopped, began again. “You needn’t endure this a moment longer. You will return with me to London today. Now.”

“I cannot. That would be a scandal.”

“I can summon my mother.”

“Soames, we must not. We will not. I cannot simply move into your parents’ home so easily. He might not do anything again, and we will have made a fuss for nothing. I will speak firmly to him and tell him he is not to repeat that behaviour.”

Soames could see that she had made up her mind, and was determined to face it on her own terms, and he could not help but admire that in her despite his fear. He would defer. He had seen tears in her eyes when she’d spoken of feeling trapped by Lomax, but she’d kept command of herself. It would be hard for her behind that brave front. He opened his arms and offered to hold her, and she moved into them immediately. He kissed her forehead, and whispered, “I love you.”

“Dearest Soames,” she said.

His throat closed up. Nobody said that sort of thing to him. He held her until she stirred in his arms and laid her hands on his chest. He looked down at her and hoped she couldn’t see how affected he was by all of this.

Irene said, “Sit beside me, and let me play some Chopin for you. I know it’s not any of the new music, but I want to play some of my favourite things just now.”

Soames let her lead him over to the piano again. He sat down on a chair beside the piano and rubbed his thumb on his ring a few times, soothing himself again. He found mastery over his feelings once more. So much emotion! He’d spent so long hoping she would say words of love to him, and no time imagining how he would react if she ever did, or that he would be sick with worry about her at the moment she said them.

Irene was kneeling at an over-full set of bookshelves, sorting through her collection of sheet music. She returned with a battered and worn paper-bound music book and set it open upon the piano. There were pencil marks and scribbled words in various places. She sat on the bench and adjusted it into position. “I don’t need to read the score to play these, I have known them so long, but I thought you might like to see it. This was the copy I studied as a young girl.”

“You’ve played these since you were a child?”

“I was so young I almost can’t remember learning them.”

Then she began to play. He listened with deep concentration on both the music and Irene. The piece didn’t seem very difficult for her, because her eyes were half-closed as she played, and she was playing with ease, swaying a little as if moved by a breeze. It was pretty, he thought, and she was pretty, and she looked happier now she was playing it. It was soft, not dramatic and stormy like the Brahms rhapsodies were. The ending was especially soft. She looked over at him when she was done.

He passed a hand over his face, and said, “Soft. Soft and soothing. I feel comforted, somehow. Does playing it comfort you?”

“Very much. The next,” Irene said, quietly. And she played something that had him enthralled almost immediately. He didn’t understand why. There was a waltz underneath it, he could hear that, and on top the most beautiful things. It was sometimes soft then it built up and demanded his attention and yet was so delicate about how it did so. When it ended Soames sat silent with his mouth a little open, trying to find words.

“That was beautiful,” he said, after some moments, and he felt completely befuddled by this reaction. “I don’t understand how it is but it is. It sounds like, I don’t know, water falling from fountains in moonlight. And then it comes back to that melody, and then does that repeating thing at the end. I don’t understand. I don’t have words for any of this.” He shook his head.

“You do understand, I think. You don’t need any more than what you just felt to understand it.”

“What was it?”

“Chopin’s nocturne opus 9, number 2, in E-flat. It is one of his most-loved pieces, and quite famous.”

“Oh. I—” He shook his head again.

“We should not have been going to concerts. I should have been playing for you and making you tell me how you felt.”

Soames shook his head a third time. It was confounding, but only in that it turned out to be simple in some ways. He had merely to listen and let himself feel. Letting himself feel: that was the difficulty. He of course did, but he kept such a tight rein on himself always, even more after he had learned what happened when he did not. Except now, with her—he would tell her. He would work to do so. She appreciated that.

“Would you play it again for me, please? Is it impolite to ask that?”

“It is never impolite to ask that of me, Soames. It is a compliment. More than that. It is perhaps the most wonderful thing you have ever said to me.”

He sprang out of his chair, seized her hand, and kissed it. He returned to his chair immediately somewhat abashed, but once again deeply moved. He had no words to say in response to her; no words would come to him. He would never have guessed this, never have been capable of saying it before, in his first life. Why not, he didn’t know. It was not as if he’d spent his elder years listening to music. It was that he had realised that what mattered to Irene ought to matter to him. He had let his heart be open to music; Irene had let her heart be open to him. That was a more than reasonable exchange; they each of them gained more than they gave. The Forsyte in him approved. The lover he had always wanted to be was so happy he thought he might burst.

Irene played the nocturne again, and it was just as beautiful, but this time Soames was listening for things he’d heard the first time to come around again so he could enjoy them again, and found himself noticing other things along the way. There was so much to hear, he thought.

At the end, he said, “That was the same but different. You never quite play it twice the same. And different people must play things differently, from other things you’ve said.”

“Yes. This is what I was saying about the Emperor Concerto. Eugen d’Albert played it with such subtle phrasing compared to others I have heard play it, that I was deeply moved. It is hard to notice this if you haven’t anything to compare to. Had you heard it before?”

Soames shook his head.

“I ought to have asked.” Irene looked chagrined. “I assumed you knew more than you did.”

“I hid my ignorance. You found me out eventually.”

“I was upset when I learned you were feigning interest, but now I understand. You wanted to give me something that mattered to me.”

“I did. I reached for the first thing I could think of. Later I came to understand another thing that mattered.”

“Thank you. From the bottom of my heart. You were always trying to express it, weren’t you? What your silent love hath writ.”

“I am overcharged with the burden of my love.” Thank goodness for a public school education.

“Who knew you were like this?” she asked, as she had once before.

Soames answered as he had before, sincerely, “Not I.”

“Would you like to hear anything else?”

“I am overwhelmed. I don’t know that I can hear anything more today and make sense of it.”

“I’ll wait for you to make a note of the Chopin, then. The first piece was opus 9, number 1, in B-flat minor.”

He might have been annoyed if she had not been looking at him so fondly. He slipped out notebook and pencil and made the notes she expected of him. Chopin, nocturnes, opus 9. He closed the notebook and smiled at her. He knew he was doing exactly what she’d said he did in that letter, but he couldn’t help it. He was in fact happy to have learned about them.

“You are so methodical.”

His smile became a little shyer. “I am. So are you, in your work on these pieces. I admire it.”

Irene flushed. “Thank you. I—well. Never mind. Would you mind if I asked for your assistance turning pages while I practise this morning? It would be most helpful.”

“I would be delighted to help.”

Irene took out the Appassionata again and set it before herself on the piano’s music stand. He did not mind. She would play what she loved; he would look at her face and enjoy her love for whatever it was she was experiencing. He sat on the cushioned stool beside her bench and did his best to turn pages, watching her face to determine where she was looking, trying to understand what she was thinking about. She was practising, not playing; he could tell that.

This was less interesting than he might have credited in some ways. She repeated passages over and over, at slower tempos than the work requested, with a metronome ticking, fingering the parts very deliberately. When she had trouble, she slowed down even further. When she thought she had mastery of something, she played it through from the beginning at a tempo she felt comfortable with, over and over. He began to understand how much work it was to get mastery of things if one was not a prodigy, or someone who was born with all the technique, as she said, that everybody else had to work for. But even in those few short hours, he could hear her progress through it, and feel her satisfaction with that progress. It was merely half a page, but half a page of dense work.

Soames was unsure which of them worked harder: he when he studied for his articles, or she learning the Appassionata.

At some time approaching the lunch hour they heard the bell ring, then the front door open. Millie’s voice, Lomax’s speaking more loudly than any social circumstance required, footsteps. Soames closed his eyes for a moment. The next task was going to be figuring out what line he needed to take with Lomax. It was a tightrope he must walk now, for he must not frighten Irene again. She did not want confrontation or to be forced to leave. She wanted to see if the fellow would stop bothering her on his own. He wouldn’t, but perhaps Soames could frighten him anyway.

He blew out a long breath and stood. He touched Irene’s shoulder for a moment, held her gaze, and nodded to her. “Your watchman,” he said. He worried it was an absurd and overly-sentimental thing to say, but the affection on her face at his words told him otherwise.

Louder voices in the hall, a moment of Lomax remonstrating with Millie, and the doors to the drawing room swept open. Mrs Lomax walked in first, all sharp colours and sharp perfume, but welcoming and delighted to see Soames again, so nice of him to come down to see them all. He shook her hand calmly; she was Irene’s refuge and he was grateful for her at this moment.

Lomax was behind her, and ah yes, that was the look of a man who wanted to know if Irene had said anything to him and if he had anything to bully his way through. Soames remembered how he used to behave, how his nose used to lift. He drew on that memory of himself now, lifted a supercilious nose, and extended a chilly hand. Lomax shook it briefly, and retreated immediately out of Soames’s reach. Soames did not mind what Lomax did, if he was taking the coward’s line.

Now he would turn his attention to Mrs Lomax. He found a warmer smile for her, simply to show Lomax how in the cold he was.

“You received my letter, yes?” On her assent, he continued. “It is my great pleasure to host you all at the Angel Inn this evening. I have enjoyed your hospitality at tea so often over these last months and I am so very grateful. I shall return it in a small way now, just the four of us. It will be so busy once we’re in London again, I’m not sure I shall have the opportunity.”

He’d studied over those words carefully, and felt he’d delivered them adequately. Mrs Lomax looked most pleased, and Lomax did not look quite as uneasy any more. Good. He took Mrs Lomax’s hands and pressed them to affirm their mutual affection—such as it was—and establish his goodwill towards her. She effusively thanked him, and he did his best to respond as expected.

“I shall stay here through tea, if I may, then return shortly before dinner to escort you all down.”

“Of course! What a perfectly splendid plan!” Mrs Lomax exclaimed, and it was settled.

He spent the rest of the afternoon turning pages of the Appassionata for Irene while Mrs Lomax did her sewing and other household chores in the drawing room near them. Irene asked if he were bored by this, but he assured her he was not, and he was not. He was honoured to assist her, happy to sit so near her.

Over tea, she shared her satisfaction with her progress. His admiration of her could not help but intensify, now that he knew where this skill came from. He walked back to the inn to change for dinner, thinking of her determination with pure respect.

Dinner at the inn was not what dinner at Park Lane was, but the food was good, and Soames had chosen the wines, so the experience was pleasant as a whole. He was able to play host and thank Mrs Lomax for her generosity for hosting him through those months of courtship, which was genuinely felt. This was his age displaying itself, in carefully expressed courtesy. His youthful self would not have known how to do this: he would have been consumed with Lomax. He’d have sulked and fumed and said cutting things, would have confronted the man no matter what Irene wanted. Now he knew how to give Irene what she’d asked for while being just as cutting as he wished. Stay chilly; stay calm; ply him with wine and assume he knew more about it than he did; show him what good manners were; show him that the staff of the Angel Inn fussed over Soames, not him, and that Soames knew to respond to them with courtesy instead of bluster. Show him what a gentleman was, and make his shortcomings clear without saying a word.

Or so he hoped. It was possible that Lomax was so insensitive he would not notice. If Irene saw what he was doing, she gave him no sign. Was Mrs Lomax aware? That was possible.

The dinner ended with an awkward attempt at toasting the engaged couple, instigated by Lomax. He assayed some words of praise for Forsyte and then some words about the beauty of his step-daughter, in phrasing that was just odd enough that Mrs Lomax said, “Now, Willy,” and Irene looked away. Soames gritted his teeth to prevent himself from reacting. But he did control his reactions, and he did return the toast with his best attempt at gallantry towards Mrs Lomax for her providential introduction of the two of them, which she was again quite pleased by.

Dinner could not end soon enough after that.

The walk back to their home revealed all about who was aware of what.

Irene interlinked her arm with her step-mother, who was most happy to reciprocate, and the two walked in amity ahead of the gentlemen. Mrs Lomax was extremely pleased, which meant she was entirely unaware of undercurrents. She was happy about how everything had gone: happy about the dinner, happy about her step-daughter’s match, happy about her prospective step-son-in-law’s prosperity, happy about the new burst of affection she was receiving from her step-daughter. She was warm and agreeable, and Irene did her best to encourage this warmth.

There was no such accord between the men, only icy civility. Soames and Lomax walked beside each other in perfect silence for half a block before Lomax spoke.

“I’m delighted by this marriage,” the fellow said. “Her step-mother has been fretting about her, what? She’s been low these past weeks, and you’ve brought her quite round. Just the man for her, she told me her—”

Soames broke in. “Be very careful,” he said, with a beat between each word. He stared at Lomax while he said it.

The fellow would not meet his eyes, and pretended not to have heard him, but Soames heard the stumble in his step. The warning had landed, and it ought to be enough, but Lomax was a fool. It was good Irene had the means to escape him.

They continued threading their way through the town’s streets towards the home the Lomaxes leased—thanks to the forethought of Irene’s father and nothing else—and found themselves at its front door.

Soames made his way inside with the rest of them, deliberately, as if he belonged, and sat with Irene in the conservatory while Mrs Lomax sat in the drawing room nearby, doing something he paid no attention to. He wanted a little more time with Irene, to reassure her and—if he admitted it—reassure himself that she was safe.

It was, to his surprise, the most alone and most intimate they had ever been in this house, there in the conservatory, in the dark night, with a single candle lighting them. Mrs Lomax was in earshot, but had her back to them. He sat beside Irene on the bench he had sat beside her many times before, but this time they sat in that little pool of light, in some privacy. Her step-parents were lax about chaperoning them, as always, not that Soames had ever complained. He would not take advantage of this, however. He would do no more than he did now, which was sit with Irene talking together later than they would normally be allowed to talk.

Irene leaned her head on his shoulder and he tucked an arm around her. He touched her face gently.

“It’s so much better when you are here,” she said softly. “Thank you.”

“I love you,” he said, quietly. “I don’t have the words for how much, but I do.”

“It’s in what you do, Soames, not what you say.”

“I should still like to find the words some day, if I can.”

“I only hope you know how much I care for you in return.”

“You may feel free to show me by kissing me any time you wish.” He smiled at her, and she obliged him by allowing him a brief kiss.

They sat together quietly, unmoving. Soames watched wax droplets run down the side of the candle. Two months in the past, and he still appreciated candles greatly. Such lovely warm light, warming everything around them to romantic beauty, if he dared admit it. Not that he would say so to anyone. The reflection of the flame in Irene’s eyes made something in him melt as much as the wax had melted. The way the light darkened her hair to that dead-leaves colour, that pale amber. She did not have pale yellow hair. It was a richer colour, variegated, gold and amber and yellowed fallen leaves, even more beautiful when firelit. Gold and amber hair, dark eyes. He was dark-haired and grey-eyed. What would their children be like? He had secret wishes, but if they took after her he would not complain.

He touched her lips with his thumb, then bent to kiss her again, very gently.

Irene smiled up at him, then said something unexpected. “Shall you come to church with us in the morning?”

“Church?”

“You should. News of our engagement has gone round.”

“Oh. I—Thank you for the invitation.”

He felt uneasy. He hadn’t been to church in more years than, well, she had been alive, in some strange sense. If he were in a little group with Irene and her step-mother, perhaps it would be simple routine, as it had always been. Or perhaps Nemesis would speak to him again. There was no telling. He did not particularly wish to deal with realities he could not fully comprehend on a regular basis.

Nonetheless, he said, “I—I shall go with you. Shall I call on you in time to walk down?”

Irene said, “Yes, please do. And thank you.”

“Are you sure all is well now?”

“I am. You are a safe refuge for me. You are my silent watchman.”

“And you are my lonely purple flower?”

Irene pressed her face into his shoulder at that, and he became aware that she was crying. He pulled his handkerchief out and gave it to her, and otherwise did not react. Did she want him to make a fuss or give her the courtesy of pretending it hadn’t happened? He wasn’t sure. He tentatively stroked her cheek. After a bit she dried her eyes and sat up.

“I think I must go to sleep now, dearest.”

“Oh, I am sorry! I hadn’t realised the time.”

“Don’t apologise,” Irene said. “You came here to comfort me, and you have done that.”

They stood and made their way to the front hall. Soames donned coat and hat, and found his stick. The door to the drawing room was open, so Soames remained circumspect. He kissed Irene’s lips, then kissed her cheek and whispered, “Rouse me if you must. You know where to find me.”

“I do. Goodnight, dearest Soames.”

Hearing that moved him every time, but he controlled himself, and only pressed her hand between his before making his way out the door. He walked to the inn he had walked to so many times, thinking of her as he had so many times, but now caught between worry and anger.

XX. Soames goes to church

In the morning he went to church with Mrs Lomax and Irene, as requested. This was not a thing he did, as a rule. He had of course attended church regularly as a boy at school, as one was compelled to, but he’d never believed in much of anything until recently, when he’d perforce had to begin believing in something. The alternative was to believe himself mad, which was manifestly not true in all other ways. He’d died and come back to life on a London and South Western Railway train heading from Waterloo to points south. This was not a matter of faith; it had happened. The question of belief, however, was between him and the deity that had done this for him—or perhaps to him, as punishment—and he did not much see the need to go to a church to speak to that deity. If he had spoken to it from the first class compartment of a train, he could do it from anywhere.

Was it a Christian god who had done this to him? Soames had named the phenomenon Nemesis, because he and Irene had once discussed it. They both believed in Nemesis, and here She was, visiting him and delivering him justice. He supposed he’d never know any true name for the phenomenon, and would be grateful not to. Gods were too much for the likes of him.

Now that he was sitting in the pew that the Lomaxes rented, looking at the restored Norman church, his arm nearly touching Irene’s, he thought going to church was a thing he might do now and again, if only to remind himself that his life had taken a strange twist, and somehow he hadn’t gone mad when it had happened. He’d accepted the challenge instead, and that perhaps had taken the intervention of deity.

It looked to be a well-attended service, cheerful from the note of the voices muttering before the service began. How many Norman-era churches across the south of England were just like this one?

The hour bell was rung. The church service was beginning. Everyone stood. Opening prayers. The vicar was a local man, it sounded like, the educated drawl overlaid on the Hampshire burr. He had a good cadence in his voice, and a taste of dry wit that Soames could hear even in the service’s introduction.

Time to kneel. To be on his knees next to her, so close to her, inches away: this was difficult. Her scent was in his nose, the rose petals and honey with its new deeper note. He could hear her gown rustling in the quiet of the church. He held himself as perfectly still as he could. The general confession began, with the congregation repeating the words together. He’d said this so many times as a boy that he still knew it now, all these years since he’d last been in a church. It had been so long that he found himself thinking about the words and finding them apt. He’d followed too much the devices and desires of his own heart. He had left undone the things he ought to have done, and done those things which he ought not to have done. He ought to have told her he was sorry. He ought not to have sinned against her. He needed forgiveness. He’d never get it, but even so, he might hereafter live a godly, righteous, and sober life, if he worked at it.

A good bit of writing, the collect of the day was. All of them, really. Solid appeals to authority, and they sounded good ringing out from the minister. The fellow had a flair for it.

And then a hymn, and to Soames’s shock, he could hear Irene next to him singing, and her voice made him ache. He’d never heard her sing—had he truly never been to church with her before? He had not. He himself did not sing if he could help it, because it embarrassed him, but she did not hesitate or hold back and her voice made something in his heart feel longing of a kind it had never felt before. Did she ever sing while she played? If he asked her to, would she? Her voice was lovely. His was a croak in comparison. He was spun round where he stood by her voice, making such lovely sounds.

On to the Psalms. In this church they read them aloud together, it seemed. He broke off reading with the rest of the congregation in the middle because it upset him. “Thou art about my path and about my bed, and spiest out all my ways. For lo, there is not a word in my tongue, but thou, O Lord, knowest it altogether.”

Everything he’d said was known. Everything he’d done was known. Every cruel word, every cruel deed, known. Every mistake. Everything he’d said in the dark of that room at the inn. Every time he’d stayed silent when he ought to have spoken. He was known. Soames shivered.

“Whither shall I go then from thy Spirit, or whither shall I go then from thy presence? If I climb up into heaven, thou art there: if I go down to hell, thou art there also. If I take the wings of the morning, and remain in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there also shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me.”

No escape, there was no escape. This was for the rest of his life, wasn’t it? It was forever. There was no moment when the Lord—Nemesis—whichever it was—was not present, holding him. There was no moment of success, only moments when She might decide he’d failed.

Soames sat with that, with Irene so close next to him that he could feel her warmth, and hoped that a lifetime of wisdom was enough to guide him through.

“Try me, O God, and seek the ground of my heart: prove me, and examine my thoughts. Look well if there be any way of wickedness in me: and lead me in the way everlasting.”

There was wickedness in him. Look well, and you would find it immediately. Lead him so he wouldn’t do it again, please, Lord, please. He did wish with all his heart he hadn’t done it, any of it, but that one thing more than any other. Why had he done it? Desire. Jealousy. Anger. He’d wanted no one else, and he hadn’t known what to do with his feelings. He didn’t even have the excuse that he’d been drunk. He was a flawed man. He was being watched, a deity was watching him, would always be watching him. He could never waver. Stay in control at all times. He made an abortive gesture with his hand, clenching his fist then releasing it.

Irene turned her head to look at him briefly, and he locked himself back down into motionlessness.

Another hymn: a reprieve from thought. Another chance to listen to Irene sing while he mouthed the words and thought about what it would take for him to make sounds like the ones she was making. Impossible, he suspected. Dared he try?

They sat. Now came the sermon, which was excruciating. Soames thought about the origins of that word and resolved to choose another. Dull, that was better. The sort of man sent to a seaside town in Hampshire was not the sort of man who wrote witty sermons for fashionable London churchgoers; no Reverend Scoles here. He was educated, clearly, and made a handful of dry jokes that Soames could recognise as genuine wit, but the poor fellow had long since run himself empty of anything new to say to his congregation. They would no doubt have been upset if he had found anything new to say. It would not have been what anybody wanted. Church was about the familiar, about knowing the responses and saying the confession along with everybody else.

The church building itself was the usual Norman edifice restored some time in the last thirty years. Gutted by Cromwell, stained glass shattered, now replaced by competent if uninspired modern craftsmen. It wasn’t notable, as far as he could tell, not that he knew anything about churches or architecture. There were the usual monuments around the walls to local men who’d gone abroad in the army or the navy and come back with whatever they’d managed to steal or conquer. A dozen tiny battles were memorialised in every church he’d ever been in. This thought led him to remembering what it had been like in Mapledurham after the War, when they had put up one monument with more names on it than a hundred years of monuments had held, and he went very still for a while, and did not hear what the vicar was saying at all.

He wrenched his mind away from that and back to the topic of the sermon, which was what, again? Oh, fervent charity, the vicar was saying, the kind that covered a multitude of sins. Fervent. He didn’t mind charity, so long as no one saw him doing it. He wasn’t sure he could manage fervent. Would it help? He doubted it. Buying his way out of his sin felt wrong. His mind wandered again. How many congregants? He counted pews, multiplied, realised that he had no idea how many rows were behind them and that he could not turn to look.

Devices and desires. Odd phrase. The assumption was that everybody was a sinner, and that they all needed forgiveness.

He remembered sitting in his club once, many years ago, and overhearing two men talking about a friend who’d set his marriage right by beating his wife and then ensuring his access to her bed. The men had looked ordinary, more ordinary than he, good solid businessmen. It was a husband’s right to do that, in the Law. He’d been unable to use the word he ought to have used for it, but he’d known what the men he’d overheard were discussing. They had thought it entirely the right thing to do for their friend’s marriage, quite sensible. The Church had nothing to say about it. The Law approved. Good strong men, doing what they ought to sustain their marriages. He’d remembered this conversation later, when trying to excuse his own sin the morning afterwards.

He wanted forgiveness. Forgiveness wasn’t going to be his, no matter how much he prayed for it here with all these people, no matter how many times he went to a church and asked for it. His sin was never going to be washed away, because the Irene he’d sinned against was not the Irene beside him now, her sleeve brushing against his. He’d died with it still on him. His burden was to not sin against Irene this time. No matter what happened, he had to not follow too much those desires of his own heart.

If he’d known attending church was going to do this to him, he didn’t think he’d have gone. But Irene had wanted him to. Maybe it was like that night in his room at the inn when he’d faced it at last. He needed to admit what he’d done, whom he’d wronged, and how. He’d once thought it was as simple as letting her refuse him. Then he’d thought it was a test he could pass by naming his sin and asking for forgiveness. Now he knew it was more.

Then the sermon was over, and there was another hymn, and his heart was soothed by the pleasure of listening to her sing again. This time he opened his own mouth and tried to join her, quietly, but he tried. He remembered this hymn from boyhood, and singing it then, and though he felt shy, he could do it. This was worth going to church for. There were so many things he had not known about her. He had been so foolish! On the whole he was grateful to be given the chance to experience this. It was worth the pain of being reminded of his sins.

The vicar said, “O Lord, let thy mercy be shewed upon us.” And Soames responded, automatically, with the rest, “As we do put our trust in thee.” Did he? He supposed he had no choice.

The final grace and then it was done, and they were making their way out of church. They were in a line of family groups waiting to speak to the vicar. And here he was, being introduced as Irene’s fiancé, shaking the man’s hand, exchanging pleasantries, mentioned as likely to be accompanying them on many future visits. Well, that was the price to pay, and he would pay it to hear her sing.

And then out onto the cobbled streets of Lymington, making their way through the churchgoers. They walked arm in arm, slowly, with Mrs Lomax ahead of them a little way, talking with other matrons.

Soames was disinclined to talk after that experience inside the church, so they walked the length of a street in silence. They turned a corner and the sound of church bells behind them dampened a little. Feet on pavements, women talking, birds singing. England in spring on a Sunday morning. Then Irene spoke.

“Do you attend church often in London?”

Soames shook his head. “I haven’t been in some years.”

“Do you object to going?”

“No. It simply doesn’t feel worthwhile.”

“Do you not believe?”

“I believe in a deity,” he said. “I don’t think that’s why one should be a decent man, but I believe there is a higher Power and we are given justice.”

“You seemed distressed more than once.”

“I was.”

“Why?”

He said, carefully, “I was thinking about whether I’ve earned what I have been given. Once I wouldn’t have questioned it. Now I do.”

Her hand tightened on his arm for a moment. “Soames, some day you will tell me.”

He made no reply; none was possible. He could never tell her. She left it alone, to his great relief, and they continued on to the house, where they settled to the afternoon’s occupations. When the Lomaxes had left them alone, Soames took a folded square of paper from his pocket that he had prepared that morning and passed it to her.

“A telegram form,” he said, “addressed to me at Park Lane, with a coded message on it. Write in your time of arrival at Waterloo if you know it. It’ll reach me no matter where I am in London. My family will forward it.”

Irene unfolded it, read the message, then folded it back up again. She tucked it into one of her dress pockets. “Thank you,” she said.

“I think I have covered every contingency,” he said, finger to his lips. There were some he had not, but he thought Lomax would not attempt them, not with an open window for Irene to scream through. God, what a grim thought. His stomach felt strange.

That afternoon Irene practised the Beethoven Appassionata once again, and he assisted, patient with the repetitious work of a determined student attempting to grasp something difficult. He stayed through tea, sitting across from Irene, watching the afternoon light warm on her hair and face. He endured the minor chaos of a home with but one somewhat hard-pressed little maid and a cook, and thought about what Irene was about to experience.

Had his younger self spent any time thinking about this? Or had he been merely a hungry, foolish youth, assuming that she would be grateful for what she was about to receive from him? Irene was about to have more pin money than this entire household ran on. She’d be free of her step-parents, and in charge of a household of her own that she’d never dreamed of or perhaps ever wanted. He thought about how hard she was working at the Beethoven. She’d wanted to be a concert pianist. She’d come close. She was still close. She still tried to break through by playing hard things. His thumb went without thought towards his signet ring as he meditated, and he rubbed his thumb against it without any awareness that he was doing it. Was asking her to marry anyone the wrong thing for her? Did she know what she was going to be asked to do? She had to have some idea what her step-mother did to keep the house fed and the fires burning. His internal agitation rose, unsoothed.

She needed him, though. She needed him there. He could do something useful for her.

Their usual decorous private kiss goodbye turned desperate on his part this time: he clasped her hands and touched his forehead to hers, repeating her name. “Remember what to do,” he said. “Don’t hesitate. Please.”

“God willing I won’t need it.”

“If he drinks, be ready. Irene.”

“I will. Dearest, thank you.”

He sat on the train up to London, thinking about that word, “dearest”, and how she’d never said it to him before, and how much he hated that it had taken this for her to say it to him now. He felt helpless. She had chosen to stay. He had to let her decide what she wanted. He had to let her do as she wished. He prayed she was right.

XXI. Old Jolyon at home

Braced as Soames was, nothing happened through the last days of May and the first week of June, and Irene returned to Park Lane for her second visit safely, without Lomax having repeated anything untoward. Either Irene had been unduly alarmed or the man had been scared off by Soames’s threat, which anyone who’d heard Soames’s voice, cold as death, might understand. Whichever it had been, this was the best of all possible outcomes. Soames received her at Waterloo feeling a weight lifted from his heart. She was re-installed at Park Lane, safe, with even more of her music brought into the home to practise.

She was wrapped and ribboned in the dresses which had begun to arrive from Emily’s dressmaker, and the succession of tedious formal dinners at the homes of the uncles and the cousins began. Soames endured them, and returned to his habit of eating very little, more out of indifference than anxiety this time.

Even more enjoyably, the summer opera season began, and he and Irene joined his uncle Jolyon at Covent Garden to hear Italian opera. Irene was not happy to learn they sang all operas in Italian, even the ones written to be sung in French or German, so they did not attend those. Soames found the opera less intimidating than he feared: it was melodrama with lovely singing, and the music was not hard for him to understand in the main. On Sundays, he took to going to church with the household, to his mother’s great surprise, so that he might listen to Irene’s singing and be taught how to use his own voice alongside hers. Not that he was good at it; not that he was proud of it. Irene encouraged him anyway, most kindly.

Some time in June, George sent a message round to him at the Connoisseurs, asking him to call at the Hotch Potch at his convenience on a Monday or Tuesday evening after dinner, for a drink and conversation. Soames came round at the first opportunity, curious what George might want, and curious if George wished to continue what might be a surprising new friendship.

George came to meet him at the porter’s desk, and led him to a side room where they could sit quietly in armchairs with a drink. The waiter came round, silent on felt-soled shoes, with brandies. Soames nodded to George and drank. It was good brandy, of course. He looked about the dim recesses of the room, anxious to see if Jolyon were about, but he could see no sign of the man. They were in the Strangers’ Room, after all, so perhaps he was in no danger.

Soames had been in the Hotch Potch once or twice before, mostly to call on that fellow Jolyon. It had a reputation for even better food and drink than the Connoisseurs, and was rather more elegant than his own club, a touch more ornate. The Strangers’ Room had an air of aloof showiness, as if it were saying to him, don’t you wish you were a member? if only you were worthy. Soames on his second go of life found this faintly amusing.

George spoke, “I have a bit of an odd question for you, Cousin Soames. Not sure if you’re going to tell me to call round your office or not, but I wanted to sound you out first.”

George sounded uncharacteristically off-balance, so Soames did not attempt to ask questions. Instead he nodded and made an interrogative noise.

“I’ve, ah, been thinking of how I might turn my allowance into investable capital. Or something I might turn into income. Or income overall, as a concept, what?”

This was a surprising question indeed, and George was clearly nervous. Soames said, carefully, “There are a number of things you might do, depending on the allowance, your current savings, and your expenses.”

“I’m not sure how to work out the expenses, precisely, because I was rather thinking of changing them, that is, I was contemplating what they would be—dash it, I wanted to work out what it would take to marry Miss Béranger and set up comfortably.”

“Ah.”

“I don’t really know—Don’t mock me, please. I’ve learnt the need for reform only recently.”

“It is a serious question and I shall answer it seriously,” Soames said, quietly. “The answer is it depends and it depends on how much money she has, how much her parents are going to want you to put into settlement, how much bargaining power you have, and a number of other factors.”

“A property negotiation. How perfectly Forsytean.”

“Exactly.”

“Makes one want to elope. Except that my father would be so put out.”

“Your father might give you more of an allowance if you marry,” Soames said. “He is also the one who will be asked to engage in the settlement negotiations on your behalf.”

“I shouldn’t count on that,” George said, gloomily. “He hates the French.”

“Very well then,” Soames replied, imperturbably, “we shan’t. We shall work it out with what you have.” He rather doubted Roger would jib at the responsibility when he came to it; the family was more likely than not to take care of a reformed son settling down in marriage.

George tugged at his waistcoat. “What are your fees for doing this sort of thing?”

“You will gratify me by not mentioning that subject again.”

George paused a moment, then lifted his drink to Soames, face carefully still.

“Can you give me an idea of what sort of time we have? Have you spoken to her yet? Do you know her mind?” Soames recognised the look that came over George’s face at that moment, and raised a hand to save him having to answer. “Right,” he said. “We’ve got enough time. You’ll want to know your expenses and what you can trim.”

“Club, tailor, rooms, valet, tobacco, racing. Oh, and I’ve engaged a French tutor,” George said. “I’ve given up the racing already.”

“What?”

“Since I met her. No racing at all. It’s been a sore trial. I sold a nag I had an interest in as well. The figure in my pass-book has gone up. If I give up tobacco it’ll go up further. Quite a strange experience, that. I’ll keep the tutor, I think. It’s paid off already. Lucie says my accent is less atrocious now.”

Soames nodded, and revised inward his time estimate. “Right. Keep that up. We shan’t talk business here. You’ll come to my office tomorrow, about eleven if you can? Good. Here’s my card. I’ll give you a range of things we might try, and how we’ll follow them up. You’ll give me specific numbers. Then I’ll tell you what you’re going to want to have. You may count upon my discretion.”

George took the card and tucked it into the breast pocket of his coat. “Thanks,” he said. “Quite sincerely, thanks.”

Soames nodded to him, and lifted his brandy to George in a return salute. Then, quite casually, “Irene says you’ve been going to the Béranger salons.”

“And mostly surviving them,” George said, with a bit of his usual wit glowing through. “I’ve got three sentences memorised. Désolé, je n’ai pas compris cela. Then pourriez-vous répéter. And c’est fort intéressant. Dites-en plus. Carry me through everything.”

Soames smiled his side-ways smile at this joke. “I understand. Slowly you begin to understand more, but not enough to be able to reply to any of it.”

“I think of things to say five minutes later. It’s quite an awful experience if you’re me, accustomed to saying something witty at every moment. I’m reduced to being earnest.”

Soames wondered how much of a genuine trial that was for George. What was George when he was earnest? The sort of fellow who bought paintings of disturbing white monkeys eating the fruit of life and standing over the rinds, possibly. Out loud, he said, “Lucie has been calling often at Park Lane while Irene is in town. You should call more than you do. Both Irene and my mother enjoy your conversation.”

“Thanks, I will.” George looked earnestly pleased: earnestness again! The poor fellow. He must have fallen for her badly.

Neither man smoked, but they drank good brandy in friendly company. Soames was pleased he could do a service for George. He had no idea how to tell George his attitude towards him had changed, but he could do something useful for him, something George needed done. They shook hands on parting and Soames found himself attempting warmth. Awkwardly, he knew, but George seemed to accept it for how he meant it.

A few days later Soames took Irene to call at Old Jolyon’s in Stanhope Gate. They were invited to tea and conversation, and then to an early dinner, for the sake of June, who was not yet ready for late nights. James and Emily would join them for dinner. It was a relief to both Soames and Irene to have a small dinner instead of yet another grand formal occasion. The smaller dinners were less stressful. At least for Soames. Irene seemed to be sailing through them like a swan gliding across water, serene and untroubled.

They arrived at tea-time, already dressed for dinner. Irene was resplendent in one of the gowns that had been ordered for her. Soames thought it quite a change for her. The colours were not like the colours she’d chosen for herself before. But she did look wonderful and he could stand back and enjoy her beauty as he used to, as a perfect thing.

Irene and June were introduced by his uncle. It was a show of contrasts, fiercely red-haired sun-freckled June reaching up, the amber-and-white Irene bending to take her hand and greet her with a cousinly kiss. June was twelve, and was to practise being a hostess tonight, she informed Irene, and Irene expressed her certainty that June would do admirably. June had many questions for her new acquaintance, from where she had learned to play to why she had learned to play to why she was marrying Cousin Soames instead of anyone else at all.

“Because I am very fond of him,” said Irene.

June made a face at her. “He’s stuffy,” she said.

“Manners! You are standing in the same room as he,” Jolyon said.

“He is, though! He hasn’t said a single thing to me yet.”

Soames gazed down at her, uncertain what to say at all in response to that. He looked at Irene for help, but the expression on her face told him this was up to him. He touched his ring haplessly, let it be, and settled on the obvious.

“I haven’t seen you in over a year, Cousin June,” he said. “Not since my sister’s wedding. I hope you are well.”

“Thank you, yes. Have you come to ask me to carry Miss Heron’s train?”

“That is a matter entirely between Miss Heron and you. If you wish to, I suggest you begin negotiating with her now. It might be a coveted role.” And with that, Soames saw the Forsyte in June awakened, and some stubborn need flare forth.

“Well!” she said. “I’m the oldest of the granddaughters. The rest are only fit to carry flowers.”

“I see,” said Irene. “You seem well-aware of your position.”

“I carried Cousin Winifred’s train. I did it perfectly.”

Irene said, gravely, “That is most excellent experience. And I suppose Winifred would give you a good character?”

June stared. It hadn’t seemed to have occurred to her that she might have to compete for the role. Soames hid his smile behind his hand.

Irene continued, “I shall inquire.”

Jolyon said, “Now, June, do welcome your guests into our drawing room so they can sit down.”

Irene took June’s arm and said, “I wish to get to know you better, Cousin June. Show me the way to your drawing room, and let’s talk.”

June was delighted by this, Soames could see, and almost dragged Irene up the grand stairs to the first floor where the Stanhope Gate drawing room was. Soames turned to his uncle with a tiny smile on his face, for he remembered Fleur at this age, or slightly younger. Had Fleur ever been that naive? Possibly not, but she’d been that energetic.

“I apologise for my granddaughter,” said his uncle.

“No need at all,” Soames said. “She is charming.”

“You are quite kind.”

They walked up the stairs together far more slowly. Jolyon was only five years older than his father was, which put him in his mid-seventies, but he was slower on his feet than James was, and considerably slower than Soames himself had been in his first life. Heart trouble had been the bane of this branch of the family, if Soames recalled. He said nothing, but made conversation with his uncle about the paintings on the walls. His uncle liked the English school, he could see: rural landscapes, dogs with their chins resting on bunches of carrots, wind-swept moors, and waterfalls in craggy landscapes.

In the drawing room, they found Irene and June in deep discussion about June’s interests.

Irene was saying, “But pray, tell me, what are you studying at school? Do you paint? Play an instrument? Study a language? Or pursue another subject?”

June lit up. “I have been studying the history of genius in Art.” Soames could hear the capital letter in the word. “I have learned some things about composers, but mostly I have been learning about painters and architects and sculptors and how difficult it is for young artists to make their way. It happens over and over where the men who have money don’t want to see the genius of young people, even in the Renaissance.”

Soames sat next to Irene on the sofa. She gave him a fond look. Then she said, to June, “I suppose those young people grow up to fail to see the genius of the next generation.”

“Yes! And it makes me sick! People really ought to die and get out of the way of the next generation!”

“Well,” said Irene, “that certainly is one way to move art along. But it would deprive the world of some of Bach’s greatest works.”

Old Jolyon said, “Titian lived to ninety-nine, didn’t he?”

“Yes!” said Soames. “I own two Corots myself; he was painting them past seventy. Turner as well, and Frans Hals into his eighties.”

“Liszt is still alive, thank goodness,” said Irene. “As is Clara Schumann.”

“Verdi is still writing operas, is he not?” said Old Jolyon.

“Indeed he is!” Irene said.

Soames said, “One more painter for you, June. Goya near the end of his life drew an old man, bent, walking on two sticks. He wrote underneath it I am still learning.”

“Very well,” said June. “Perhaps some men don’t have to die. But most should.”

Irene said, very gently, “Perhaps instead we might consider bringing attention to newer painters and composers and giving them a chance, instead of hoping living ones die. I for one mourn the early deaths of Mozart and Schubert and Beethoven.”

June gazed at Irene, and Soames saw something like worship creep over her face. “I think I understand,” June said. “There’s room for more genius, is what you’re saying.”

“Yes, that’s what I’m saying.” Irene smiled at June.

“The more painters for me to discover, the better,” said Soames.

“You discover painters?” June’s interest in him was now acute. “How do you do that?”

“I look for them in galleries,” Soames said, simply. “I found one in a painter’s supply shop once in Paris. It’s a matter of keeping one’s eyes open and having taste.”

“How do you have taste?”

“Look at many things and decide what you like. Go to the National Gallery and look.”

“Stuffy!” said June again. It seemed to be her word.

“See here,” said his uncle. “You can see good work in the National Gallery.”

“I quite agree,” Irene said. “Soames has shown me some beautiful paintings there.”

Soames gave her a stealthily grateful look for arguing his side of it. The two of them had visited several times together during her visits, and he had shown her how he looked at Constable and Crome, as well as Turner’s oils.

To June, Soames said, “You need to look at the same things new painters study as they learn. Some work is good; most of it won’t be. Only by looking at a great deal of work will you learn to tell the difference.”

That was perhaps the most Soames had ever said about painting in June’s presence, and he was quite near regretting it now that she had fixated upon him. “I believe more are better than you think,” she said.

Soames very politely said, “That is your taste differing from mine, which is as it should be.”

“Which one of us is right and which wrong?”

“This is the wrong question to ask,” said Irene. “You’re both right, for you. I like the compositions of Gabriel Fauré. Soames doesn’t. Both of us are right, for ourselves.”

June was giving this a great deal of thought, for it was an idea new to her. The idea that there was no universal correct answer in art was, apparently, one to grapple with. It was fascinating to watch her think. Soames had never objected to June having an opinion about art in his first life, only to the militancy and rigidity of her ideas. Well, and to her dislike for him, though there’d been something to that; perhaps he could have behaved more likeably.

The clock in the room vibrated out a deep chime for four-thirty.

“Ah!” said his uncle. “Time for tea.”

Parfitt and a maid brought in the tray with the tea service. Irene sat in the place of honour and served them all tea. The blend was not Forsyte & Treffry, which his uncle no longer had any business interest in, but another importer of which he approved. His uncle still had the palate that had earned those teas their reputation and his fortune, and the proof of this was in the flavour of what he served in his home. He kept the older generation supplied with good tea to this day. The reputation of his palate had risen almost to the level of myth. However exaggerated it was, the tea in this home and in Timothy’s had remained good. The Forsyte family always had exceptionally drinkable tea, even the fashion-prone younger generation.

Irene asked how his uncle took his, and seemed unsurprised that he took it without anything at all. Soames took his with only enough sugar to take the bitter edge away and a little milk, which Irene already knew. June took hers with too much of both, and her grandfather did not chide her.

This was a ritual that had not changed through the years. The china perhaps changed slightly in fashion, but not much. The spirit-lamp hadn’t changed; neither had the little spoons, the teacups, the saucers, the milk jug. All this would perhaps never change, as far as Soames knew; why should it? How comforting it was to be handed a cup of tea by someone who knew exactly how one took it. How comforting it was to drink the tea, and find it delicious. There were little tea-cakes as well. Soames took one and ate half of it.

After tea, Jolyon begged for Irene to grace them with piano-playing, which she was delighted to do. She settled herself at Jolyon’s piano—another Broadwood, Soames noticed—and touched her fingers to the keys.

She said, “Would you like some Schumann? Or would you prefer Schubert?”

“Beethoven today, please, Miss Heron. I have been longing for him recently.”

“Please do call me Irene. I will be married to your nephew soon, after all.”

“Thank you, my dear,” he said.

“And I shall be more than happy to oblige you with Beethoven. Do you have anything in particular you wish to hear?”

“Surprise me,” his uncle said. He sat where he could watch Irene’s hands, and waved Soames over to sit near him. June roamed about the room watching Irene from whatever angle took her fancy.

Irene smiled at the three of them and began to play. Soames sat quietly with his uncle and listened.

She was playing something he didn’t know, but he could recognise as most definitely Beethoven and not anyone else. He was slightly surprised to notice he had learned to tell one composer from another, in the main. Chopin sounded different from Mozart and from Schumann. What would he ask Irene to play if she asked him what he wanted? He was unsure. He’d never thought about this before. What did he love best? It felt an absurd question to consider at the moment, while he was listening to Beethoven, but he thought it might be either Chopin or Beethoven.

He cast a glance to the side at his fellow listeners to see what they were thinking.

Uncle Jolyon looked simply happy in a way that made sympathy well up in Soames. This was a reaction he understood. June was watching Irene play silently. Her stubborn Forsyte face under its red hair was thoughtful to a degree that almost alarmed Soames, for he knew what lengths the older June could go to when she got an idea in her head. The twelve-year-old June was not yet old enough or experienced enough to wreak that much havoc, but she might try. Precisely what she might try, he had no idea.

He let himself go back to watching Irene’s hands on the keys. At the end of what must have been the first movement of a sonata, she stole a look at her audience and then simply kept playing with the next movement. How did she have so many pieces in her memory? But then, Soames had the laws of the nation in his memory, and the years they’d been passed, and case law about them, and he could draft any number of legal documents without needing anything other than a pen and a sheet of paper. It was much the same thing, he supposed. They each had an expertise. Irene’s was the piano.

He hadn’t thought of it that way before. He’d always respected her, even through the worst moments of their first life together, but he hadn’t respected her deeply enough. Why not? And why hadn’t he said it? And why did listening to certain music make him so melancholy and wistful and full of such regret about the past? He could do better now. He could feel hope.

Irene played the third movement, which was fast and alternated between quiet runs and loud strikes, which was an enormous contrast with how it had started. It was interesting that the quietest part of it had been the first movement; wasn’t that usually reserved for the middle bit?

Soames became aware that Irene had stopped playing, and that his uncle and she were looking at him. He straightened up and glanced around at them. Had he missed something? Apparently he had.

“Was this boy asleep?” Old Jolyon said.

“He was not,” Irene said. “He was deep in thought about Beethoven. What were you thinking, Soames?”

Soames flushed. He looked down, then said, “There is so much to think about in a Beethoven sonata, and so many of them to listen to. That one started off like a nocturne, but it didn’t end that way at all.”

“It’s called the Moonlight,” said his uncle, “and Irene has a marvellous touch with it.”

Irene said, “The first movement is a bit like a nocturne.”

“It’s wistful and moody, then it turns quite intense. Is Beethoven always like that?”

“Ah, not always! I shall give you Beethoven in a quite different mood.”

She then began to play yet another piece that was—again—obviously Beethoven, but not something he had heard before, and it sounded nothing like any of the other Beethoven she’d played for him. The theme felt like it was tossing a joke from one side of a dinner table to another. The second movement raced around itself in little circles, and the third was pretty. It had four movements, which surprised him.

“Was he younger when he wrote this?” Soames asked.

Old Jolyon chuckled. “Much the same age as the Moonlight, but Beethoven had more than one mood in him. That was The Hunt sonata. Not one of my favourites, but it is lighter. Irene, you have a command of the repertoire indeed. Could we try some Schubert now, perhaps?”

Irene graciously inclined her head to him. “It would be my pleasure again.”

And she was off playing Schubert impromptus to his uncle’s delight, and Soames did not mind in the least. Her playing was only interrupted by his parents’ arrival for the early dinner at half-past six, timed for June’s early bedtime. Old Jolyon took him aside and asked him if he would mind taking June in to dinner and helping her play the hostess. Soames told his uncle that he would be honoured to escort his cousin. He could see that the old man was very pleased by this response.

The procession in to dinner was small, and otherwise predictable: his uncle took his mother in, his father took Irene in, and Soames and June came last.

He remembered escorting Fleur in to dinner when she was about this age, twelve or so, and how he’d felt, and it came to him that his uncle would feel the same now. So he offered his arm to June with grave courtesy, and smiled at her with all the warmth he would have offered Fleur. June was more impetuous than Fleur, who had been fine, and on the watch—always acute, always perceptive. June wanted to pull him forward, but he touched her fingers and gestured to slow her down.

“Watch Irene,” he whispered, for her alone to hear.

June watched, and they made their solemn way forward in careful imitation of Irene on James’s arm. At the table, he drew her chair back, and waited as June watched how Irene sat, and then eased the chair forward to meet her as June attempted to match it. He caught his uncle’s eye and saw his nod.

He did not offer praise to June, but instead was quietly accepting of her performance, as if she had done well as a matter of course. He smiled to her and made conversation with her as if she were any other dinner partner, not special in the least, and of course doing it all quite correctly. This seemed to reassure June, who settled into some kind of comfort, and was able to converse with him about painters, and why he bought what he bought. He tried to explain what he looked for, and when he took chances on younger, more adventurous painters, as honestly as he might. June began to relax with him a little, and to be less reluctant and suspicious of her stuffy cousin.

When the soup course was taken away, he cued her to turn the table to switch conversation to partners to her right, instead of her left. She asked why, and he responded that there was no good reason: it was simply tradition, so she ought either to follow it or to break it with ceremony. June considered this, then turned the table with some care. She began conversing with her uncle James on the topic of why it was done, cautiously, unsure of what her uncle would say. James was puzzled by the question, and said she would have to ask Mrs James.

His mother was to Soames’s left. He looked to her and saw her beaming at him.

“What now?” he said.

“You’re being very kind to June.”

“Doing no more than what I ought to do,” he said. “She has to learn somewhere.”

“Exactly,” Emily said. “Now eat your fish, dear. You’re too thin.”

“Yes, Mother,” he said, with a cast-up eye that was affectionate despite itself. He was still too thin.

They came round to the relevé, which was, of course, a saddle of mutton. Soames had informed Irene before her first dinner-party about the tedious interest of the first generation in where their mutton originated, and in their idiosyncratic choices of origin; he had further warned her of the folly of engaging directly in this impossible dialogue. She was therefore entirely bland and non-committal during the first run of dinners about her opinion of any specific cut of meat arriving before her, until she had tasted it. This resulted in great consternation, it not being generally agreed that one could understand how something tasted in the mouth before one had established how much expense it had taken to arrive in that mouth.

Old Jolyon revealed to Irene that his mutton of choice was Dartmoor. Irene asked why. “Are the sheep there particularly flavourful?”

Jolyon said, “Apparently. My cook tells me I prefer the flavour above all other muttons.”

“There’s good pasturage in Wales,” said James, clearing his throat.

Irene glanced across the table at Soames, and he saw that impish look on her face that presaged something that George would have loved to have observed. “Has anyone exchanged mutton? Say, put mutton from Dartmoor into the kitchen at Park Lane and mutton from Wales here?”

James said, “Now why would anybody go and do that?”

“To see if the dinner party could observe that they had been served the wrong mutton,” said Irene, innocently. Soames hid his face behind his wine glass.

Jolyon’s eyes twinkled. “Now I should like to do that to Swithin some time. Fancies himself to have a palate.”

“I am told you are the one with the palate,” said Irene.

“For tea, certainly. For anything drinkable, perhaps. I won’t stake my reputation on anything beyond tea.”

“We shall have to make the experiment some time,” Irene said. She paused to taste the claret, which by her face she thought good.

“Change Swithin’s Southdown with Nicholas’s Argyll,” James said, unexpectedly, and Jolyon laughed out loud.

“He sits on the board that ships it, doesn’t he? That’ll show the fellow.”

June listened wide-eyed to all of this, absorbing the adult conversation raptly. When they came round to the sweet, Soames leaned in to her. “Watch when it comes to the savoury,” he said. “When the table is finished with it, you’ll want to cue the ladies to be ready to follow your lead out of the dining room.”

“How do I do that?” she whispered.

“You look round and catch the eye of each. But they’ll all be watching for you.”

“Thank you.”

“You are most welcome.”

When the savoury was done, Soames saw June very obviously nodding to his mother and to Irene, and then standing up ostentatiously, and the two women followed her out graciously. The men stood as the ladies left the dining room.

Old Jolyon’s bearded butler Parfitt came in with brandy instead of port.

“Have a brandy, James,” said Jolyon. “It’ll do your liver good. You too, young man.”

Soames had not dreamed of declining. He took his glass in hand and sniffed first. It was good, expanding in the mouth nicely, with hints of sweet fruit and wood. He had more and let it warm him.

“No cigars in the case. Soames, come along into my study with me and we’ll fetch some,” said his uncle. “We’ll be back in a minute, James.”

Soames followed with some trepidation; this was clearly a pretext to draw him aside to talk with him in private. He’d never been in his uncle’s study before. He had in fact spent little time in his uncle’s home in Stanhope Gate; he’d never been friendly with Jo, who was some eight years older than he was. The study was dark and old-fashioned and solid: mahogany furniture, Turkey carpets, dark papers on the walls, and over it all a rich smell of cigars soaked into everything. There were dark paintings on the walls of yet more dogs sleeping in rural settings, with the occasional chicken as variation. And was that a Morland? Soames thought it could possibly be, or more likely a copy, though it was too dark in here to be certain.

It was in fact quite dim in this room, with gaslight splashing warm circles of light around sconces. Soames settled himself at a corner of the carpet, hands behind his back, and watched his uncle fill the cigar-case from the cabinet.

“Well, young man,” said his uncle.

“Uncle,” said Soames, remembering his manners.

“Your young lady seems to have reformed you.”

Soames looked at his feet in patent leather shoes on the Turkey carpet, then up again at his uncle’s face, at those magnificent flowing moustaches, at that chin so indefinably similar to his own. They both had Forsyte faces, didn’t they? His uncle’s face was hidden, while his own was exposed, but they were the same.

Was his uncle right? Was he reformed? The years he’d lived had reformed him, but that was unspeakable. But Irene had also reformed him, or rather, the attempt to do things right by her had reformed him. How could he say this to his uncle in a way that would be understood? Perhaps the simple words were enough.

“I try to be worthy of her,” he said, eventually.

“You’ve outgrown your sulking.”

Soames carefully kept his mask in place. Yes, he’d outgrown it; yes, he still felt an urge to sulk even now when his uncle mentioned it. What was it about the man that caught him this way? Perhaps it was the mere memory of being a boy with his intimidating uncle looming over him barking at him. He said, in a flat calm voice, “Yes.”

“They say you’re a long-headed young man.”

Soames made no answer to this; it was what they said and they both knew it.

“And yet you’re marrying a woman with no money.”

“It doesn’t signify. I love her, and that is why I am marrying her.”

His uncle made a sound. “Don’t tell anyone I said this, but you have more in common with my son than you know. He did everything he did for love as well. Gave it all up for love, or so he said to me. I’ve been angry with you since then, you know.”

“I know you’ve been, but I have never understood why.”

“It was the business with Frances. I blamed you for her decisions. I think I understand it better now, since we talked at Timothy’s. I understand you better now. You’re not a bad sort.”

“Thank you, Uncle.” Soames was now in some kind of ferment. He was both upset to be compared to that fellow and touched. This hurt in a way he could not name. He felt defensive of something in himself that he couldn’t describe, and tried to push it away. He said, “Your son and I never got on. I was angry with him about the scandal.”

“You were always chalk and cheese,” his uncle said. “I was angry with him too, of course. Still am.”

“You’ve always seemed impatient with my father as well.”

“Bah! That’s just the impatience of a man with his younger brother. I’m just as put out by Swithin. Nick is the baby; I can make allowances for him. But see that I trust your father with my business, and that’s the sign of what I truly think of him.”

Soames nodded. “I see, sir. It takes a certain sort of man to—”

“To what?”

Soames paused to choose his words carefully. “I think few men understand what it is to take care of the family. To think of their best interests and try to advise them well. My father takes this seriously, and so do I.”

“Do you think of that as your task?”

“At times it is my task. Your generation goes to my father. The younger generation comes to me.”

“I suppose the mantle passes on.”

Soames nodded. “They come to me for property advice. There’s another sort of advice they get from the aunts and you. Who will inherit that role?”

His uncle studied him quietly, then took a cigar from the case. “Do you smoke cigars, young man?”

“Not yet,” Soames said, and that was a slip. Fortunately his uncle seemed to take it merely as prediction.

“They make you wax philosophical,” the old man said. “You’re young yet. If my own boy were still here, I’d want him to take the role, but he wouldn’t want it. He never wanted to tell anyone else what to do. Your Irene might, but she’s young for it yet as well. We’d better hope Ann and I live long enough for someone to grow into it.”

“I do hope so, Uncle.” Soames was sincere. He didn’t want the role again just yet. He was far more prepared than he’d been the first time, but he wanted to enjoy a youth that looked to be far happier than his first shot at it had been.

“Let’s go keep your father company, shall we?”

They went back out to the dining room. Soames touched his father’s shoulder on his way past. He found himself doing that more often than he ever had in his first life: touch him, let him know that his son cared for him and thought of him often. Soames found it sad that his uncle didn’t have that; he’d thrown it away. He seemed hungry for it. Why else would he put up with James’s son? Or perhaps it was just that Irene was pretty and could play Schubert and Beethoven as well as she could, and tolerating James’s son was the price Old Jolyon paid.

Whatever the reason, it was rather lovely to close out the evening at Stanhope Gate sitting in the drawing room again, watching his mother guide June through serving coffee to her guests, listening to Irene play more Schubert. His uncle looked happy and satisfied, and June looked delighted beyond words.

Soames felt it was a successful dinner, and he handed his parents and Irene into the barouche back to Park Lane happily, and made his way south to his chambers on foot in contentment.

XXII. Paint and paper

The dresses ordered from Irene’s first set of fittings arrived. Irene’s reaction to them was most interesting to Soames. She was both delighted to have serious fashion and fine dressmaking for the first time, and seemingly interested in what she might do next with a different dressmaker, or with different fabrics or colours. She didn’t say anything about this directly, but he could hear it in her voice, and see evidence in it of how closely she studied the Liberty’s catalogue.

The arrival of the dresses in late June signalled the impending end of this visit to London. Mrs Lomax had written requesting that Irene return to Lymington to meet her own sister, who was visiting Bournemouth the coming weekend. Irene felt it was a reasonable request, and she could not reject it without seeming quite impolite, and besides, she told him, her step-father had been on his best behaviour.

Soames did not like that she was returning south, but it was her decision, and his duty to accept it, and distract himself with the enjoyable task of furnishing the house with her.

Soames had purchased furniture many times in his long life, starting from when he’d furnished Green Street the first time, for Winifred before her marriage to Dartie, because Winifred had sought his advice. He’d been more than happy to do it for Winifred. She’d needed a dining room that looked right and he’d had an idea about what to choose that would suit her and the current fashion; it was his deepest pleasure to find the right things for her and arrange it just so. Making Fleur’s arrangements come off well—or as well as a father of the bride could—had also been his pleasure.

Here, his duty was to assist Irene in the decorations, and make it all run smoothly for her, which was its own sort of satisfaction for him. He knew there were three furniture dealers in London to take her to, and he would take her to them and let her make the decision. He knew to make sure all the items they needed were thought of and arranged. He knew to hire a man from Gillow’s and hand over all of Irene’s instructions and preferences. He would take her to Liberty’s, and to the Morris showroom, and ensure it was all arranged perfectly.

And so it was on a Saturday that he and Irene made their way to Great Pulteney Street to visit the showrooms of John Broadwood and Sons, to see if anything there would suit her needs. Irene was thrilled to be shopping at last for her instrument, and Soames was both anxious and delighted to see the interest on her face.

It was a fascinating showroom to Soames, quite large, smelling of wood and polish and filled with strangely gaudy instruments on display that seemed to dismay Irene. An assistant intercepted them to ask what he might help them with, addressing Soames and not Irene.

“A grand piano suitable for a drawing room,” Soames said. “My fiancée will be making the decision.”

The assistant made an ingratiating gesture to him and turned his attention to Irene. Irene nodded to the man politely. He tried to lead them to the nearest of the over-decorated instruments, but Irene was uninterested, and requested that he show them pianos meant for serious playing.

He led them to what he described as a drawing room grand. “May I demonstrate the instrument for you?” said the shop assistant.

“I will see what I make of it for myself,” said Irene, coolly.

She sat on the bench before it and removed her gloves. Soames took them from her, and stepped back and out of her line of sight, so as not to distract her. She assayed some runs up and down the keyboard, which Soames knew to be trials of what it played like. She then played what he recognised as Mendelssohn. It was a surprising choice, given what he knew of its difficulty, or rather, its lack of difficulty.

She played it, and it sounded much as usual to him. She frowned, and that surprised him again. She then assayed some things that he did not associate with any pieces in particular, but instead with what Irene might play at the beginning of her morning practices. Her face was not promising, but Soames remained still. Then she stood up. Soames returned her gloves to her, and she began working her hands into them again.

Soames said, uncertainly, “Was that a good instrument?”

“It’s perfectly playable.”

The assistant was hovering, but Soames paid him no mind.

“Is that the one we should have in our drawing room?”

Irene looked away from the assistant and did not answer.

“I thought not. Let us go to the other shop then, shall we? There is no need to rush the decision.”

“What is the other shop?”

“It’s one for a French maker, I have mislaid the name.” Soames reached for his notebook to find the name, but Irene was ahead of him.

“Érard?” she said.

“Yes, that’s it. Just round the corner.” There was something in her face that told him he was on the right track with this idea. It was a very short walk from one showroom to the other, and he had the pleasure of walking with her on his arm. He was not in danger of growing tired of being arm in arm, nor of looking over at her and smiling.

Another shop, again redolent with wood and polish, another assistant advancing to speak to this obvious young couple furnishing their new home. This shop assistant was a Frenchman. He did not offer to play any of the pianos for them, but inquired merely what sort of instrument they were seeking. Soames was ready to answer, but instead Irene said something to him in French, and he replied, and led them to a different place in the showroom, to a piano far less showy than the ones near the front. Irene nodded with satisfaction. She went to the piano the assistant indicated, and adjusted the seat the way she had at the other shop. Soames couldn’t see any difference between this piano and the ones at the front of the showroom, other than the frivolities, and couldn’t see any difference between the ones here and the ones at Broadwood, other than the name over the keyboard. Perhaps something about the strings? He hadn’t ever looked at the inner workings of pianos and thought about what made one different from the other. He was sure Irene could explain it to him.

The assistant stood beside him and said something in French about how lovely the young lady was.

“Yes,” Soames said, “elle est.” The assistant smiled behind his hand. Soames then advanced to Irene and took the gloves she had just removed to hold while she played, and stepped back again so that he would not distract her.

There were the runs up and down the keys again, but this time Irene smiled when she completed them. Something about them had satisfied her, and something about them was different. He had no idea how to describe the difference, but he felt it. Irene paused, thinking for a moment about something, then she began to play. Soames stood up straight. She was playing a Brahms rhapsody, he knew that much, the second one because it was quieter, but that was as far as he could get. Her face was somewhere else entirely, thoughtful and intense. He could also see that the assistant had changed his attitude entirely and was now watching Irene respectfully instead of with mere frank admiration.

Irene stopped, flexed her fingers in a gesture he had come to recognise, then began to play something else. Chopin, he knew instantly, and he liked it rather better than the Brahms, though he could find Chopin showy. This Chopin was not the usual, but was something he had not heard before; it was in fact showy and fast, technically. Then he realised that Irene was much happier with this piano than she’d been with the previous. The same music was different, lighter, faster, airier. She was more comfortable. The assistant had been joined by a more senior man. They were both watching Irene. No, not exactly. They were watching her hands and listening to her, with some pleasure.

She switched again to another piece he recognised but had never made much of, Fauré, the nocturne in E-flat minor. Irene loved this piece, he knew, and had been delighted to learn it, but he was still struggling with it. Sometimes he thought he had the thread, then he lost it. Irene was lost in the pleasure of playing it now, on this piano, he saw. This was the instrument. The showroom assistants knew it, he could see, and their attitude changed yet again. Now they were watching him: they smelled a commission. Soames smiled quietly to himself. Well, they had one. They might fight over which one of them got it.

She broke off and stood. He could see on her face that she was satisfied and had played something she had enjoyed playing. He went to her and handed her gloves back. He had a quiet word while she put them on. “I could see from your face that you were more pleased with this one.”

“I was.”

“Did you have enough time with it?”

“Yes, it was quite clear from almost the first moment.”

“Shall we make our purchase?”

“I think so, if this is within our means.”

“I believe it is. Or rather, this is important enough that other things make way for it.”

“Thank you,” she said, and the look on her face made his heart ache. He told her she was most welcome in that voice he saved only for her, and turned to the showroom assistant to begin the conversation. The two waiting men did engage in a brief skirmish about which of them got the commission. Soames decided to favour the young man who’d originally assisted them, out of an impulse that told him this attitude would be useful.

When Irene saw the prices, her face changed, and he could see that she had blanched and might interject. He touched her elbow and drew her aside for the moment. “Is this the right piano? There isn’t something you’d like to play instead?”

“This is—This is what I played at the Conservatoire, only newer. It feels comfortable to play in a way the English pianos don’t. But it’s so much more, I—”

“Then this is the one we choose. The rosewood, I think, but please tell me what the right size is. I don’t know.”

She hesitated another moment, then he saw that she had decided. “About six feet. Any longer, and it is too loud. Any shorter, and the sound is compromised. No ornamentation on it, please. It’s for playing, not for show.”

“We’ll tell them as much.”

The piano settled some issues about the decor, in his view: the drawing room must suit the piano.

They made their order; Soames engaged in some conversation with them about when their house would be ready to receive the piano, and when it would be ready to be delivered. This conversation ended most satisfactorily, and they left the showroom content. Irene was on his arm once more, and he could feel that she was almost quivering with energy. Her face was alight.

“You wanted to visit Liberty’s again?” he said. They had visited once before, earlier in her stay, but only to browse. This visit would be the one where they committed to selecting colours and fabrics.

“Oh, yes! I went over the notes I took last time, and today I want to make specific selections for the decorator. We are to meet him later, are we not?”

“Yes, and this is a sensible plan.”

Here, the staff were again delighted to fawn over Irene, the lovely young lady who obviously knew what she wanted and was just as obviously planning a significant purchase to decorate a house. While she chose linens and colours, Soames busied himself establishing an account. Irene would make the selections; the fellow from Gillow’s would provide exact lengths and sizes; he would pay for it all and enjoy looking at the results.

Soames returned to Irene to watch her. The assistant carried some bolts of a faded green linen back into the stores. Irene did a sum in her notebook, and her face changed in a way that alarmed him. There was a look there he had not seen before.

He touched her arm. “What’s wrong?”

“The bill,” she said. “It’s going to be—ought we to… The piano was shocking, but it is a piano and I expect—that is—this is merely fabric and it’s unimaginable.”

“Show me.” She showed him her estimate, which was several hundred pounds. “It’s no more than I had planned. If those are the fabrics you want, they’re well within our means.”

“They are?”

“I would let you know well before you reached the limits of what I had thought to spend. I have the numbers in my own notebook. I ought to have sat down with you and talked about them in advance.”

She looked at him with doubt in her face. “You are certain?”

“I am.”

Irene went back to the shop assistant and confirmed some matters with him, and left with an itemised list of what they wanted to order. Then they left the shop and Soames flagged down a cab.

As they rode back to Park Lane, Soames said, “Irene, this house is yours to decorate. If you wish my opinion, I will give it, especially about how I should like to hang paintings. But otherwise, I want—I want you to show me what you’d like.”

“You have an eye as well, Soames, an eye for colour that is most interesting. Not quite aesthetic, but to the side of it in a way I cannot describe.”

“Oh!” he said.

“I should like this to be something we do together.”

“That would—yes, of course. Would you like an opinion on something you’re unsure about?”

“Of course.”

“Distemper in the halls, lighter colours. And you are right to want the smaller Turkey carpets. They look better than fully-carpeted floors.”

“And Soames?”

“Yes?”

“I should like to see the notebook. So I understand better.”

“Of course.” It hadn’t occurred to him. “When we’re at Park Lane.”

They did not go back to Park Lane immediately; they went to Pelham Crescent, where the man from Gillow’s was to meet them and talk over what they had ordered from Liberty’s, and discuss what wallpapers he would be purchasing from Morris to match. Emily was supposed to be meeting them there as well, to chaperone and then accompany them back to Park Lane, but they had arrived somewhat early. The conversation with the decorator absorbed Irene for some time. Soames followed the pair of them around the house, and made notes as the discussion progressed. They ended up in the drawing room, where Soames gave the decorator the exact dimensions of the piano they had ordered. The fellow marked the bounds with chalk on the bare floor, then ran downstairs to fetch something. Soames heard his footsteps in the hall, then the sound of the front door shutting behind him.

Soames stood near the door of the drawing room, watching Irene move around inside it as he had on the day they had decided to take the house. The walls were stripped bare now. Her footsteps rang against the walls. They were, he realised, completely alone in the house, as they almost never would be, not even when they were married and living there as man and wife. He took two steps forward into the room.

Irene had her back to him, mere feet away. He was aware of her scent, rose petals and honey, as he always was. He could see the nape of her neck, bare above her dress, wisps of dark gold hair straying free above it. She was there, beautiful, desirable, so near him. Two more steps would bring him to her, and he might—he might take what he had taken before, might take what Lomax wanted now. Prove me, and examine my thoughts.

He closed his eyes, put his hands behind his back, and rubbed his thumb against the face of his signet ring. He opened them again, and held himself completely still, save for his thumb moving.

Irene turned to him and smiled, completely unguarded and free with him there, and said, “The position we planned for it will suit it.”

“I’m pleased,” he said. He stood motionless, watching, until he heard the door open again.

In the Park Lane drawing room later, they sat on the sofa, with their heads bent together. He handed over his notebook to Irene, open to the pages with the household decoration budget, a few pages on from the ones where he’d worked out how much he had available to put into settlement. Irene’s first reaction was to smile.

“Your handwriting is lovely,” she said to him. Soames was startled. “It’s so elegant and compact. You write so quickly and yet it is all legible. It is the thing that struck me first about your letters.”

“Oh,” he said. It had cost him to learn to do that; he had tried to write with the wrong hand as a boy.

“May I look at your notes on music?”

“Of course. They’re back from where it’s open to now.”

He watched her page through his notebook. She lingered here and there, solemn, smiling a little now and then. Had he written anything he did not want her to see? He thought not.

She then leafed forward to the pages with the household furnishing budget on them, with notes about sources for the capital, and what he’d estimated as an overall total, and where he would trim if one category ran over. He saw her studying the numbers, and flicking her gaze up at him. Did his care surprise her? Did the amounts surprise her? She hadn’t had anything like the means for these expenditures before. He was not a warm man yet, but he was becoming one, and he had not stinted on the house decoration budget. He wanted her to feel she had expressed herself and that she would be living in a home she had made her own.

“This is—” she paused. “A shocking amount of money, Soames. That you have this, that you planned for this and set it aside, that you have a reserve in case I should want something surprising, all of this is beyond me.”

“I have been saving capital for this specific goal for some time. Since I first met you, if I must admit. I thought that if I hoped to marry you, I should start planning for a home for us.” He thought about George, who’d understood he needed to do this, but was struggling with how to do it. George was starting with—what did the racing men call it? a handicap. Lead weights in his saddle.

Irene looked down at the notebook again, and said, slowly, “I see. It’s still more than I can imagine.”

She closed it and gave it back to him. Soames slipped it back into his breast pocket. He felt uneasy about this conversation; Irene seemed to have some feeling about it he did not understand. Was it not his duty to provide this for her?

Irene said, “You plan ahead.”

“I do. It is who I am.”

“You are cautious.”

He looked down at his hands, folded over his waistcoat. He was cautious, far more cautious than she was. He loved her boldness; he loved her playfulness. He wanted her to fear what he feared. Out loud, he said, “Yes. The end of it all is that I have the money to allow you to do what you wish with the decorations, as you see, and enough in reserve not to endanger my investments. I do not have anything like the capital my father has, or his income, despite what I have saved for this. I am likely to someday.”

“You are dedicated to your profession,” she said.

“I am. And I am becoming successful. I am developing a reputation.” He looked down. He did not want to boast here, particularly as it was not something Irene had the expertise to understand or care about, but he would eventually have a very good reputation indeed, and he would guard it zealously until the day he turned his back on it all. Though perhaps this time he would not want to do that.

“Did you ever think of becoming a barrister instead of a solicitor?”

“I was encouraged,” he said. “I would not have been good at it. I did think about going to university on the way to becoming a solicitor.”

“And?”

“I wanted to, but my father thought it better to get to work immediately and not waste time on frivolities. I did as he wished.”

“Do you ever regret that decision?”

He looked at her in a little surprise. “I’ve never thought about it since. It was enough to have the opportunity of starting out in his firm, I suppose. It did suit me. I got through my articles and exams and started making money.” It was so long ago for him now that he could not remember what he’d felt about it, in fact. Parkes had perhaps complained more than he had.

Irene said, “You talk a great deal about making money.”

He shrugged. “It’s what I do.”

“Is there anything more you do?”

“Until you, no. The paintings, I suppose, but nothing more. I—I told you I didn’t share those.”

“You said no one asked.”

“They enjoy looking at them on walls. Everyone has something on walls. Photographs, dried flowers, lithographs. They don’t think about why I might spend hours in a gallery looking at one painting, only that I do, and they find this amusing.”

“Whereas everyone enjoys politely applauding Mendelssohn in a drawing room.”

“With perhaps as little true appreciation.”

“There are a few people who seem to appreciate it. Your uncle Jolyon. And you.” She touched his hand briefly. “But why is making money what you do?”

He smiled, more to himself than to her, then said, “There is a goal I have, for you, for myself, for our children. Security. Comfort. To give you pretty things and all the concerts you might wish to go to. But also—I dream of not living in the city someday.”

“Oh?”

“And of not working. I should like to mess about in a punt, fishing. Or watching birds.”

“Slowly you reveal yourself. You would like to do more than make money.”

“There’s a great deal more I’d like to do. I haven’t had much more that interested me until, well, until you. You’ve changed everything.”

She didn’t answer at once. He feared that he’d said too much, laid himself too bare too quickly. But then her hand slid over and came to rest on his where it lay on the sofa between them, warm, reassuring. He let out a breath.

“You’ve given me so much to look forward to. A house. A piano. Birds. A punt on a river?”

Her smile didn’t last all the way through, and he couldn’t help but feel his own smile wavering. He felt uneasy. None of it was theirs yet. She had to go back. They had to make it through the next separation. A summer, an autumn, a wedding. The house was renovations unfinished, wallpapers to be delivered, fabric for curtains yet to be made, linens yet to have her monograms sewn into them, furniture yet to be delivered. A piano ordered and unfinished, undelivered, untuned.

In between them and what they dreamed was her next few months living in Lymington, under the same roof as her step-father.

“You go back Thursday?” he said. He knew which train she intended to take. He hated knowing the time it left.

“Yes, I—My step-mama has asked—that is, she wants—there are calls she wants to make with me.”

“You have everything ready? My card, the telegram form?”

“I have it all.”

“You remember the plan?”

“I have it committed to memory.” She said it as if it were a jest she were sharing with him. “I could repeat it to you in my sleep, Soames.”

“Don’t repeat it to anyone else.”

“Of course not.”

He should have left it there. He’d thought of every contingency; that was what he did. He’d told himself this over and over, on the train up after she’d confessed to him what her step-father had been doing, and on countless sleepless nights afterwards when he’d thought over what he might do to ensure her safety. He almost believed he’d buried his emotions. But he could feel emotion rising in him, that same deep half-controlled feeling, the one that would only know satisfaction with Lomax’s throat in his grip, the one that didn’t bear thinking about. It was cold, so cold. He’d thought he could hide it from her, but he couldn’t. He was shivering with whatever feelings were coursing through his blood, the feelings he couldn’t hide from her.

He felt her hand wrap itself round his. It was so warm.

“Soames,” she said, very softly. “You will stay in London. You will let your own forethought manage it all for us.”

“I know. I planned so that I need not be there.” His voice was rough. “That isn’t the same as liking it.”

“Dearest. I know.” She pressed his hand under hers. “If it came to the worst, and you were there, you might find yourself doing something that couldn’t be undone, and then where would we be? Trust me to follow your instructions.”

Soames swallowed. She would protect him from himself, from his own anger. He was supposed to manage himself! He was supposed to be able to control himself, but he could not. This was where he broke. At least he knew it.

“You taught me how to do this,” Irene said. “Trust me to execute it. Trust me with our plan.”

If only trust did not involve inaction, breathlessly waiting while he stood still and watched for some clear sign. This was the hardest sort of trust there was, the kind that waited for its object to deliver on what one hoped was as straightforward as it seemed. He much preferred to be the one doing, to be the one trusted. His entire life had been built around being that man. Now she was asking him to be trustworthy another way.

He bent his head to her. “I’ll stay where you’ve put me, until you send for me.”

“Thank you,” she said, and kissed his cheek.

He saw her off at Waterloo on the Thursday. There was nothing to be done on a public railway platform but what anyone might do: hand her up into the carriage, see to her bag, hold onto her gloved hand longer than might be quite proper, and hope that she read in his face what he could not find words for.

He stood outside her carriage, looking up at her. She opened her window and leaned out to smile at him, to give him that open unguarded smile that was his now, and so cherished. He made himself give it back, despite the fear he was feeling again about letting her roam far from where he could keep watch over her. That was his duty and he couldn’t do it when she was down there. It had started as a jest and now it was far too real for him.

The engine hissed and steam roiled up into the air.

“Thursday week,” she said. “You shall meet me here, and we will go and see whether they have hung the paper in the dining room.”

“Thursday week,” he said.

The whistle went. He backed away from the carriage, and the steam engine blew in earnest as the train groaned into motion. South she went, on the train he had taken himself so often, the train on which he’d awakened so recently and found himself given a second chance. Irene was carried south towards that man, who might do anything or nothing.

Soames stood with his hat in his hand, staring into space while carriages moved past him, faster and faster, until he was standing in silence on the platform, alone with his dread.

XXIII. Irene escapes

Irene had wrapped her wrists under her sleeves. They hurt, and her fingers were starting to feel stiff. She’d been up all night writing the letter to Emily, and that had made them stiffer. She made her ritual flexing gesture to loosen them, but it was not helping.

She signed the letter, holding the pen with reluctant fingers. Whatever it said now would have to do. On the envelope she wrote Mrs James Forsyte, then the Park Lane address. She stamped it. She unfolded the telegram form and reviewed it. She crossed out the name SOAMES on the address and wrote EMILY above it. She looked at the train timetable one last time, and wrote in the time on the form. Two of six sovereigns Soames had given her were in her pocket, where she would use one to pay for the train, and have one near to hand in case of surprises. The others were in that purse that hung around her neck, wrapped in a handkerchief so they would not clink.

Her preparations were done.

The candle on Irene’s desk was near guttering. Dawn was showing in the sky outside the open window; the morning birds were speaking to each other in the trees. She cracked her door open so she could hear it when the servants woke. This was, she hoped, her last night in the house she’d lived in with her dear papa. She would try to remember him in it, and no one else.

Irene heard Millie’s steps on the stairs, and poked her head out. Millie came in to her and Irene embraced her. She handed over the telegram and the letter. She asked Millie to repeat the instructions in a whisper, as Soames had asked her to repeat his instructions. She handed over a shilling for the telegram, and generous tips for both Millie and the boy she would send on the errand. She gave another embrace to Millie; the girl always did her best, and she was wiping her eyes as she crept off with the messages.

Irene went back into her room. Time to finish packing. She had her bag with the things she could not replace: Soames’s letters and her parents’ photographs, some precious scores that she was not willing to leave behind, like the marked-up Appassionata, the Brahms, some others from the Conservatoire, her childhood Chopin and Mendelssohn. It hurt to leave all her other music behind, but it truly could be replaced. She had little beyond that to take. She packed the dresses Emily had given her merely to fill out the bag.

She blew out the candle before it guttered out. Dawn had broken, and the sun was up. She must hide her bag now, and pretend to be asleep. He had a routine on this day of the week, business that took him out of the house to Bournemouth at half past nine. She need only wait until he was out of the house and had caught his train, and then she could leave after him and catch the next. Once he was out, the only difficulty remaining was getting her bag past her step-mother. Millie would help.

Irene looked at her bed and found herself unable to consider getting into it. Instead she went to the open window again and leaned her elbows on the sill carefully, avoiding where it hurt. She breathed in the dawn air.

Footsteps inside the house. Irene froze and her blood thundered in her ears. She listened for movement in the room across the hall from her and trembled. Nothing. It was only Cook’s footsteps on the way down the back stairs, nothing more than that.

Where was her self-command? She’d told Soames she would carry out his plan, and she would need to keep her nerve to do so. He had such faith in her; she had to live up to it. It ought to be easy from here on. Now she need do nothing; she need merely wait until he left the house. Then it would be safe for her to leave.

She sat down at her desk and laid her head upon it to wait.

She dozed off despite herself, and woke when she heard sounds in the room across the hall. A male voice, clearing its throat. He was awake. Heavy footsteps, a floorboard creaking. His throat clearing, then he was speaking, saying something in a conversational voice. Her step-mother answered. Irene did not move, afraid that she might make an unusual sound. The sounds of morning washing, shaving, dressing, then her step-mother going downstairs, her step-father following. Her step-mother calling up to her impatiently, reminding her that breakfast was on the sideboard.

Irene stood. She had to appear, and had to seem to eat. She walked downstairs, taking care to do so with normal grace. She had to look as if nothing had happened. Nothing had happened. It was an ordinary morning. This was an ordinary breakfast at the table where they always ate as a family. A family.

The eggs and kidneys made her stomach revolt. She took toast with a little butter and poured herself tea. She sat at the table safely across from him where he could not reach her, even though her step-mother was in the room. She ate her toast and drank her tea, doing her best to show nothing at all on her face. How did Soames do it? He seemed to have this mastered, the art of masking himself away, of looking smooth and composed when near this man. She ought to ask him how. He was jovial, expansive, pleasant and affectionate with her step-mother. He caught her eye at a moment when she incautiously looked up, and his smile made her shiver with fear. He smiled wider when he saw her shudder.

“What are you doing today, my dear?” he said to her.

Irene’s vision did something most strange: it went black around the edges. It had done that once before, before her first recital. Her piano teacher had reminded her to breathe. She breathed.

“Practising,” she said.

“You shall have to play for me tonight,” he said, and it seemed so innocent, so completely wholesome, and her step-mother was entirely taken in by how kind her Willy was being to his step-daughter by marriage.

What did she do at recitals now? She thought about the music. She did her best to give the music to the audience. She could do that even for this man.

Irene smiled graciously and said, “Of course.”

“Capital,” he said, and his smile broadened again.

Her step-mother spoke up, half into her tea, half to the table. “Willy, do remember I shall be at the church sewing circle tonight.”

“Of course, dear,” he said. “Irene will keep us occupied.”

Oh. Oh. That was what he meant. Irene did not dare move from where she sat, lest she give anything away. Let him think he had broken her. He had not. She finished her toast and her tea, and assisted Millie in tidying up. Millie caught her eye and nodded once. The messages had been sent.

He did not leave immediately to catch his usual train, but was instead doing something inside his study. He seemed in no hurry. Irene sat at the piano playing scales to warm up for her practice. Her wrists and fingers gradually loosened. He came out into the drawing room with his case and top hat, and stood behind her. Her skin crawled. She imagined she could feel him behind her. She imagined she could smell him. She knew she could do neither thing. And then a step behind her, another. She could hear him breathing.

She watched the clock while she moved from scales to more interesting warm-ups. He was going to miss his usual train, and yes, there her step-mother was reminding him of this, and he replied that he knew that perfectly well, and would be on his way soon enough.

If he missed his train, he would be on the train she’d planned to be on.

Irene began playing the first Chopin étude, which was just difficult enough that it ought to take her mind off the clock and the man behind her. Timing, technique—No. Her fingers would not obey her. She found herself playing very badly indeed, and had to stop lest she teach herself something she would have to unlearn with great pain. Mendelssohn instead, something so easy she could not play it badly.

Her step-mother’s husband had now officially missed his train. He was still standing behind her, watching her play. She could still hear his breathing when she paused between pieces.

She remembered Soames at dinner in town with them, lifting his nose sideways and smiling with pure supercilious anger. It was that smile that had convinced her she would need to watch Soames carefully and keep him away from this man in future, but it was also that smile that inspired her now.

Irene paused, lifted her own nose a little sideways, and smiled. She knew something that even her pained wrists would manage. She began playing the third movement of the Moonlight sonata, which was loud, and insistent, and so deep in her learning she need not think. It only took thirty seconds of this before he laughed and said, “I shall see you tonight.” He left the drawing room.

Irene played the rest of the movement, at fortissimo, then made her way upstairs swiftly and as silently as possible. She slipped into her room and closed the door.

The front door opened and closed. Irene went to her window and pulled her curtain to the side, carefully. There he went, in top hat and Inverness, umbrella open against the rain. He was out of the house. She breathed out, and felt her fear loosen. She rubbed her wrists. Every moment of playin that had hurt; she would pay later.

Contingencies. Soames had told her once that he didn’t merely think about the first solution to a problem, he thought about contingencies. What might go wrong? What is less likely to happen but might still happen? It had been interesting to try to think like him while planning last night. He was clever, and it seemed so easy for him, but Irene had found herself enjoying attempting it. What if she missed her train? Wait for her on the next. If she missed that? Wait until nightfall, and only then fear the worst.

She pulled the timetable out of the pocket of her cloak, and checked the time on her little watch. Her next opportunity would be thirty minutes after her planned train. More waiting, now. She wanted to arrive at the station after his train had left. Ten minutes, then, and she would leave.

She slid her bag out from under her bed. Where was her step-mother? She listened carefully, but could hear nothing. Somewhere in the house sewing, perhaps. Cloak on, hat on, bag into hand. The stairs she had ascended minutes ago were now frightening. She descended a step at a time, as quietly as she could. A creak and a pop—she froze in pure fear, then kept descending somehow. She was at the front door. A long breath. Would the door truly be silent for her? The knob turned, the door was pulled carefully inward. She was out.

The door pushed closed behind her with a firm click. The rain was falling steadily. She opened her umbrella and angled it into the wind. Then she was in motion, quickly, bag held ahead and to the side, keeping it out of view of the windows of the house she used to live in with her papa, as she made her way as rapidly as she could to the corner where she would be out of sight. She would be running if she could, but these skirts would not allow it, and it would attract too much attention. One block, two. Now she was safe. To the station. The train was there, waiting.

Irene bought her first class ticket, found an empty compartment, and boarded. She sat wedged against the window, where no one would touch her. Now she must trust Emily and her letter.

---

Emily was at her desk doing the household books when the telegram arrived, addressed to her rather than to any men of the house. Her first reaction was anyone’s reaction when a telegram arrived: a thrill of shock followed by anxiety. What had happened? Was it bad news?

She opened it immediately, and did not notice Warmson moving more slowly than usual towards the door, preparing himself to act if called upon. Origin station: Lymington. Message: MAKE HASTE TO HELP ME, and then a time in the mid-morning. Emily was an educated woman; she knew the message immediately for the 70th Psalm. Lymington meant Irene, and therefore the time was a train arrival time.

She stood to ring for Warmson, but he was already there, miraculously. She said, “I need to send a message to Mr Forsyte at his office, which I shall be writing in a moment. Oh, and do please have Winifred’s room prepared for Miss Heron again. She’ll be arriving later today. Please come back in five minutes. Thank you, Warmson.”

She immediately wrote a note to James: If Soames were there, James was to send him to Park Lane immediately. If not, he was to tell her where Soames was, so that she could summon him. Irene was on her way to London, and she needed help. She sealed the envelope. On another sheet, she wrote the words “COME HOME EMILY” and the Poultry address.

When Warmson returned, she gave him both messages: the first to be run to James by the hall boy, and the other to be sent by telegram, to alert James that the slower message was on the way. The telegram itself might be enough to get Soames in motion.

Emily paused at this point to consider what else she might do. It felt, to her, like something Soames would have thought ahead for, since she knew her son and his caution, and his careful preparation. The question was why Irene might need help, and why Soames would have wanted to think ahead. What had been on his mind?

It would take him most of an hour to come home at best, and she might as well use the time to put the dress that had arrived last week out for Irene to see.

While she was in the midst of this preparation, the midday post arrived, and what questions she had were answered, for Irene had written to her. She opened the letter, which was not short, and read it through immediately.

Emily was a warm-hearted woman, and the men she had known in her life had deserved that warm heart. Reading Irene’s letter hurt and shocked her, genuinely. Other less fortunate women might be surprised by or have cause to doubt her shock, but it was real. James had never—would never. James had never expressed his affection to her where anyone else might hear it, but Emily had known only love from him. Her own family had been warmer than the Forsytes, and she had never feared for her safety in her own home. She was deeply distressed to learn that Irene did and that she had been frightened for some time.

Soames’s reaction—this had to be considered. Soames, Irene wrote, was so angry with her step-father that she thought it best not to involve him in executing his own plan. He would be tempted to do something rash. For his own sake, he must be kept out of it. Would Winifred and Emily please come to meet her at Waterloo? She was uncertain she would be alone on the train. It was possible she would not be on it, because her step-father’s morning routine was uncertain, but would instead be on the next. If she were not there by nightfall, they would need to come to Lymington, because she would have been prevented from escaping.

Emily wept briefly, then dried the tears from her face and set herself to practical thought. She had to act on Irene’s request immediately; she could be upset later, when the dear girl was safe.

She took out another sheet of writing paper. She wrote a second note, this one to Winifred, explaining Irene’s need and instructing her to come to Park Lane directly, with Publius and his nurse if necessary. She rang for Warmson again and had him send this message to Green Street, chased by the carriage as soon as it could be ready, so that Winifred and baby need not walk. Emily tapped a forefinger against her lips. What else could she do? Soames would need handling, that she was sure of. He would be angry and stubborn, and she was unsure which way he would jump. Emily would need to talk him down, and that would be the task.

There was plenty of time yet to meet the train. The telegram had arrived well in advance, and so had the letter: Irene’s letter had gone ahead of her. Winifred would be at Park Lane on time; Soames might arrive just in time; James would arrive last. The room was immaterial now. The question was what sort of state the poor girl would be in.

Well, Emily would simply have to ready for whatever she found.

---

Soames could barely control himself as he tumbled out of the hansom. He ought to behave like a gentleman, calm, emotionless, but he found it impossible. Why had his mother summoned them home? He could think of only one predictable reason, and the other reasons he could not think of did not bear contemplation. His father was waiting for the message that would inevitably follow; Soames could not. He tossed too many coins at the cabbie, and was out and into the house in moments.

“In her sitting room,” said Warmson, to Soames’s look, and then Soames was in motion up the stairs. He barely knocked and was in.

His mother was there at her writing desk, turning to him as he entered. She looked deadly serious, almost grim. She held out a telegram to him: MAKE HASTE TO HELP ME, and a train time. Addressed to his mother, not to him? He froze for an instant, then said, “I’m going to Lymington if she’s not on that train.”

“You will do no such thing. Her letter arrived after I sent for you. She requested Winifred and me specifically, and asked that you not come. We’ll be leaving as soon as Winifred arrives.”

Soames opened his mouth to argue.

“No,” Emily said. “She said it was for your own sake that she was doing this. If you care for her, you will respect her wishes.”

Soames stared at his mother. “She wrote that?”

“She did. She has a reason.”

“Is she coming here?” he asked.

“Yes, dear. I know you don’t like it. You needn’t worry. You will be able to see her. Winifred and I will take care of her, and rest assured, we will go to Lymington if we must.”

He breathed out. “She asked me not to go. Very well. You’ll need directions through the station.” He tore a sheet of paper from his notebook and sketched a map of Waterloo for his mother, and handed it to her. A meek, obedient son he was.

He had no intention of obeying, of course. He need not tell his mother what he intended to do. He went downstairs without a further word, to wait, to fret, pacing along the hall. Winifred arrived, with nurse and son in tow. He embraced and kissed her, and sent her upstairs to their mother. Some time later, the hall boy ran out to stand in the wet street and hold the horses. A few minutes after that, Emily and Winifred came down. Soames, hands trembling but silent, escorted them to the barouche and pair, and handed them into it. His hand lingered on the door, and he set a foot on the step.

He saw his mother look at him and shake her head. Did he trust his mother? Did he trust Irene? Was he trustworthy?

He closed the door and turned away. He walked up the rain-wet front steps and put his hand over his face. He could not bear that he’d walked away. He heard the driver speak to the horses and the wheels grind into motion. Irene had told him what she wanted. She’d been clear. She had written his mother, not him. He knew better than to mount some kind of legal defence for any foolish defiance of her wishes. He could do nothing but stand there helplessly, listening to the carriage move away.

Soames went back inside the house, past Warmson whose look he refused to meet, and mounted the steps to the drawing room. His head was down. What was he to feel? What was he to do? He wanted to know her safe. That was what mattered. Did he trust his mother? Yes, without question. Why then did his heart revolt inside him? Because he’d wanted to be the one. Because he’d wanted to receive her, rescue her, hold her, be her watchman, be her everything. Be trusted by her. Did she not trust him? Was he being selfish even to form this question? He wanted to see her the first instant it was possible to see her and ask her what had happened. He had not read the letter she had written to his mother and it was tormenting him. What had happened? Was she well? What comfort did she need?

He flung himself onto the drawing room sofa. He spun his signet ring, stroked it with his thumb, and tried to think. She had escaped. She had sent the telegram. She had managed to send a letter to his mother. Surely this meant she was—It meant nothing. It meant she had escaped, that was all. What had happened before that was unknown. He wanted to read the letter she’d sent his mother. He could not demand it. He had to endure until they returned.

---

“Drive on,” Emily said. The coachman snapped the whip in the air, and the horses started. Now she and Winifred were in the barouche on the way to Waterloo without Soames.

It had been a near thing. Soames might have decided to be the stubborn boy he sometimes was, instead of the level-headed man he had grown to be. That was the thing about Soames; she’d heard him called cold-blooded, but he was the opposite. He hid it all because his feelings were so fierce inside him. She loved him; she knew he was frantic with worry and also as angry as Irene had warned.

This station was positively a labyrinth. Soames had given them clear directions on a scrap of paper to help their way through it. He’d been insistent, and Emily had thought him overwrought, but once again he’d proven to be merely carefully foresighted, and thus they were in place when the morning express pulled in.

People began alighting and streaming towards the exit from the platform. Emily searched faces, looking for ladies’ hats and skirts. No sign of her. Was she coming first-class or second? The crowd became thinner as the carriages emptied. Still no Irene. Emily looked at Winifred, who shook her head. The platform emptied further as passengers climbed onto the train for its journey back south.

The guard blew his whistle.

Winifred touched Emily’s arm. “It was this train, Mama?”

“Yes.”

“If she’s not on the next, we have to think about her having been prevented.” Winifred was quite calm and thoughtful about this, not shocked.

Emily reached up to her throat, where her cloak buttoned. It would do no good to fret about that quite yet, so she would not let herself, but she might need to consider bringing James if it came to that. She would need some kind of assistance. She went back to speak to the coachman to tell him they’d be waiting another half hour for the next train, then returned to Winifred.

Half an hour of waiting. Emily walked in little circles on the platform, restlessly.

“Mama,” said Winifred. “You are as bad as Soames is. Sit down and wait.”

Emily stopped and looked at her. Why was she so calm? It was quite strange. She ought to be as fretful as Emily was, as Soames was. Winifred knew what had happened; she knew what a blackguard Irene’s step-father was; surely she would be as startled… Emily brought a gloved hand to her lips. James had not been easy in his mind about Monty. Soames tolerated him only because Winifred cared for him. He had not paid for Winifred’s pearls. Emily had seen him in his cups more than once. Was he—? Surely not! Winifred would tell her mother about it, wouldn’t she?

Emily turned away from Winifred to hide whatever was on her face at the moment, and began a longer walk, down the length of the platform. She regretted having made Soames remain behind. Soames would either cast up his eyes and tell her to stop fretting over nothing, or calmly explain what he was doing about Monty. Without him, Emily was left worried sick about two daughters, one her blood and one about to be hers by marriage. She would have to manage this on her own.

She reached the far end of the platform, where the bored guard gave her a polite nod. Emily responded graciously without thought, turned, and began the walk back. Grey clouds overhead had begun once again to drop a steady rain. They were under the station’s high roof, but the light beyond it had darkened though it was early afternoon yet. Emily hoped the dear girl was on the coming train and not waiting in the rain to catch the next, or worse yet trapped in her home unable to escape.

If she were not on this train, or the next, or the next, she and Winifred would go to Lymington. Ought she to send for James to bring along? Accosting the man and shaming him in front of his wife would be difficult work, and she would prefer to have James with them. The timing for fetching James would be difficult. She could not send the carriage for him without risking having it not there when Irene arrived. She could send a telegram home, but any telegram would need to be worded very carefully to keep Soames from tearing here instead of James. Perhaps “Irene delayed, James come, keep Soames calm.” She might want to hold the carriage until the last moment and wire despite the risk of upsetting Soames.

Emily finished another slow circuit around the platform and came to a stop alongside Winifred, who was sitting on a bench calmly enough. She looked as if she’d been deep in thought about something, Emily knew not what.

“Well, Mama?”

“We can but wait.”

At that moment the station staff began moving: the next train was visible on the tracks, on its way in. Winifred stood, and wound her arm through Emily’s. They stood together and watched it approach. It pulled into the platform with squealing wheels and steam hissing out of the engine, coal smoke billowing above.

Emily drew Winifred with her and positioned them once again where they could observe the passengers as they alit.

Almost immediately she saw dear Irene coming down the steps from a carriage in the middle of the train, one bag in hand, and tears sprang to her eyes that she immediately controlled. The girl was clearly exhausted, with dark shadows under her eyes. She walked steadily towards them and they towards her. Emily took her bag and kissed her forehead. Winifred took her arm and Emily saw Irene wince. Now she leaned on Winifred, and Emily could see her begin to tremble, resolute until the moment she was safe. Brave girl.

Emily led them back out to the carriage and helped Irene up the step inside. Winifred sat next to her and put an arm around her. Irene rested a head on her shoulder. Emily would have been touched by how close the two were if the circumstances had been less horrid. That sweet girl; that wicked man. Emily tried to ask how she was feeling, but Irene merely shook her head. It was unthinkable and shocking and no wonder Soames was as angry as he was. Emily could not blame Irene for wanting to keep Soames uninvolved, however. He might have done something regrettable. Emily was not far from doing something regrettable herself.

---

Soames was pacing in the entry hall, back and forth, back and forth. They were late. Irene had missed her train.

He continued pacing. He’d told her he would stay where she had put him. He would trust his mother to fetch him if she needed him. Down the length of the hall, back to the front door. Warmson was in the hall with him, polishing silver that did not need polishing, carefully not looking at him. The family closed ranks at times like this. Warmson was, in some way he could not explain, family.

The pacing came to a sudden halt when he heard the sound of a horse and iron wheels on cobblestones out front. He met Warmson’s eye, and Warmson looked outside through the window. Warmson nodded at him, then smoothly opened the front door. The hall boy ran out, and opened the door of the barouche. Three women entered: Winifred first, followed by his mother with Irene on her arm. His mother’s maid Fifine—Warmson’s wife—appeared from below stairs somehow and the three women clustered around Irene. They none of them had any attention to spare for either him or Warmson. He met Irene’s eyes and saw her acknowledgement that he was there. She said nothing to him, so he said nothing to her. He stepped back to let them pass. Behind them came the hall boy with Irene’s bag. The four women made their way up the stairs silently, slowly, followed by the hall boy.

Soames bit at his finger. He was beyond anxious, but there was no point in saying anything. She was here; she was safe now. His mother had it in hand and she was more than able to soothe things. He had to trust his mother; he did trust her. He had so wanted to be the one that—he had so wanted to be the one. She had chosen his mother. He would accept it and be happy she was safe.

Soames retreated to his father’s library and sat in a quiet corner to lick his wounds and stroke his thumb against his ring. He would have preferred to have gone to his boyhood room, but that was too close to the room that had once been Winifred’s, where Irene most certainly was now. He would sit here, in dim silence, and remind himself that all of this was sensible, that he would have done the same in his mother’s position, that his task now was to remain patient. Irene was the one in need. His duty was to serve her. Eventually he would believe everything he’d just told himself and feel better.

Some time later Winifred appeared through the library door. She made her way to the back corner and sat next to him.

“Warmson said you were here.”

Soames said nothing, but looked at her.

“She was up all night last night. She’s sleeping now. Her arms are badly bruised but she is otherwise unharmed.”

He breathed out pain and fear he hadn’t known he’d been braced against, and found tears in his eyes despite the relief. Because of it? Whichever it was, tears were rolling down his face in front of Winifred no matter what he wished. He’d been imagining a thousand upsetting unnamed things and coiling himself into tighter and tighter knots. Now he could loosen some of them. He pulled out his handkerchief and mopped at his face.

“She’ll be all right, dear.”

“I wish I could see her.”

“She won’t be leaving her room until tomorrow, I think. She’s exhausted.”

“If you talk to her again, please—would you give her my love?”

“Of course.”

“Thank you.”

“Soames, dear.” He looked at his sister, eyes still blurry with tears. “It’s been rather a bad time for her. That man is horrible.”

“I know,” he said, very quietly.

“Give her time.”

“I will.”

“She does love you.”

He could do nothing but hide his face behind his hand in response to that, for Irene had never said that with those words, so he could not believe it. It was very kind of Winifred, however, and he embraced her to express his thanks in earnest. When she’d left him, he finished mopping his face dry and resumed his mask.

Soames decided that there was no point staying at Park Lane if she were not coming down. Instead he would go to his office and pretend to work, and if he was lucky, coax himself into some real work. He made his way back downstairs to the front hall. Warmson was there, polishing silver. He told Warmson he was heading back to the office and to send word there if he was wanted. He kept his face a calm mask with every scrap of skill he had learned through his long life, and he knew it held, for he saw Warmson’s relief that he was not distressed. He walked, to give himself more time to let his feelings settle. It did not help; they were far too strong for that. He worked. He failed to have tea. He worked some more. He went to his club and failed to eat dinner.

After this pointless sham, he fled to his chambers and sat there in full retreat, with a whisky and soda—one, no more than that. He stretched out in his cane chair and recited the litany: she was in Park Lane; she was safe. That she hadn’t reached for him hurt. Why hadn’t she? Ought he to be upset? Ought he to mind? Ought he to care at all or only be relieved she was safe? He had to let her do as she thought best. He had to trust his mother.

He went to bed but woke often through the night, fretting about her. If only he’d been able to talk to her.

In the morning Soames was calmer, but not happier. He needed to see her and hear from her own lips what had happened, hear from her that she had not been harmed. He shaved with an unsteady hand and cut himself twice. He forced himself to dress more slowly, as if he intended to go to his office that day and work. If she would not see him, he would go to the office as if that had been his plan all along. If she would see him, he would see her. Whatever she wanted. He could do nothing else.

He walked to Park Lane slowly, controlling himself, reminding himself that she came first, always.

He asked Warmson to send word to Miss Heron that he was there and ask if she would see him. He would wait in the hall for her reply.

Warmson returned fairly quickly: Miss Heron would see him in Mrs Forsyte’s sitting room. Soames went upstairs with some measure of hope. He knocked on the door and entered, and was greeted by her with warmth, which made him feel even more hope.

“Irene,” he said. He took her extended hand, and pressed it, but did not attempt further intimacy.

“Soames,” she said in response.

“I—I am relieved you are safe.”

She merely nodded at him.

“My mother has told me very little other than your request that I not go. I am here to offer you whatever it is you wish from me.”

She breathed deeply in and out, and he recognised the gesture of someone seeking the right words to express something. He waited.

“Soames, dear,” she began. “I sent for your mother and your sister, not for you, for a reason.” She looked at him as if waiting for him to object, or complain in some way, but he did not. After a moment, she went on. “I wanted to avoid a scandal, most importantly. Escaping to you or with you would have caused a scandal.”

“I understand,” Soames said. This was a reason he could not argue with.

“The other reason is a harder thing to say. I don’t want to hurt you, but I must say it.”

“Please say it.”

“I did not want your anger to lead you to do something we both might regret.” She held up her hand to forestall his objection. “I know that you have my protection in mind. I know that you wish to do your best by me. But I did not wish to tempt you, because—” and here her voice was unsteady— “because it was genuinely distressing. You would have been right to be angry.”

Genuinely distressing? His head swam for a moment, until he breathed himself out of it. He continued to breathe steadily until he found words for himself: “I understand your fear. I might have hoped to behave better this time, but I understand.”

“There is one more thing I must say.”

“Yes?”

“I would not have escaped without your forethought and the steps you took,” she said. “Thank you.” She stepped close to him, pulled him down gently and kissed his lips herself. She stroked his cheek.

Soames found himself trembling at her touch. He said nothing at all, but reached out for her hand. She gave it to him. He kissed it, and stayed bent over it for a moment, deeply moved and unable to speak. She had appreciated him. He had not rescued her in the moment, but he had mattered. It was absurd that he had to matter, but he did. It was his weakness, perhaps, his flaw, but he wanted to matter to her.

“Irene,” he said. He swallowed, then continued, “The most important thing is that you are here, and you are safe.”

He found, as he said it, that he believed it. It was the truth in his heart. Seeing her in the room with him and holding her hand made up for it all. He did not have to be the one; having helped was in fact enough. He could feel gratitude to his mother and to Winifred, after a day of feeling emotional about them; what mattered was that she was here, smiling at him, safe.

He kissed her hand again and said, very quietly, “I love you.”

“Dear Soames,” she said, and he knew enough to hear this as deeply affectionate. He closed his eyes and clasped her hand between his, to give himself a moment. He released her hand gently.

“Tell me what you wish to, when you are ready to.” He could feel the cold anger still present deep inside himself, carefully contained, locked away where she would not see it and it would not escape.

She nodded.

When he left Park Lane to go to his office, he was at peace with her decisions. He was not at peace with not knowing what Lomax had done, but she would tell him if it mattered, when she was ready to, and he had confidence in that.

He sat in his office thinking about the expression on her face. Winifred had said her arms were badly bruised. The fellow had pinned her in place. He’d done that to her once, just once, in that first life. He had left bruises on her too, no doubt, and an expression on her face like that. A worse expression? He had been the horrible man. Her own husband, holding her down and—God, he had such a hard time with the word, though he knew that was the word and that was what he had done to her. Lomax hadn’t done that, had stopped short of it. It was unimaginable to him as he was now, that he’d been capable of it. He could remember what a torment jealousy was, how starved for her he’d felt, and he knew that the reality of her infidelity landing on him had sent him out of his body and mind, but he could not imagine doing it now. He was still capable of that anger today, but he had learned control. That was the whole point of this second life, wasn’t it?

Why hadn’t he apologised to Irene, that Irene, ever? He couldn’t face what he’d done. He’d felt guilt and shame and had taken the coward’s route.

He buried himself in work so that he could stop thinking about what his past self had done.

Soames called in at tea-time that day to reassure himself that all was still well, that Irene was not as badly harmed as she once had been. Irene was down to tea, looking more rested and calmer than she had been, more like herself. Emily poured tea for them both. His mother was uncharacteristically solemn and unhappy, and Soames was unsettled to see it: he could not remember seeing her so serious.

“I sent a telegram to Mrs Lomax,” Emily said, to Soames. “After luncheon. I told her Irene is here. I followed with a letter giving the explanation in the clearest terms I could manage. I asked her to send Irene’s things and said we would pay. I should give it a day or two before we expect a reply.”

Irene looked down into her teacup. Soames wanted to reach for her but did not. It was for her to reach for him. He was acutely aware of this. Whatever it was that had happened, Irene had to decide who touched her right now. Soames had to stand back and wait.

XXIV. Soames listens to Beethoven

Soames brought a valise of clothing to Park Lane and installed himself back into his boyhood room. He could not bear being far away from her; it broke him to consider going to his chambers and sleeping there. She was safer if he was there standing guard, or so something buried inside him believed. They were both in the same house. He could reassure himself that she was safe every morning and every evening. It was soothing for him to be back in his parents’ home as well, to enjoy its comfort. He did not examine this feeling deeply, and no one around him asked him to. His father simply told him it was good to have him at home.

They breakfasted together as a family. He, as always, left before James did, and came home a little later, in time for tea. They would dine together later, usually only the four of them. He could bring her in to dinner on these nights, and sit across from her, and talk with her. Afterwards they would sit together in the drawing room and she would play for him, or they would read. They were growing so close now, doing this, and his heart was as full as it had ever been.

About three days after her return he sat in the breakfast room, drinking coffee and eating eggs. He’d put on some weight again, which was good. His mother and Irene came in, Irene in one of her lovely new day gowns. He rose and greeted them both, smiled at her. She nodded to him. She was still not herself yet, but she was doing better now that she was in London. It gave him a little thrill to breakfast with her, then later to tell her he was going to the office and hear her warm farewell, a taste of what marriage would be like when they lived in their own home together.

He worked as hard as usual. He had two clerks apprenticed to him now, and had their training in hand. It was rather pleasant to do this again, to teach young men how to do the basics perfectly, to settle into his previous life as a lawyer and investor, to start at the beginning again with his collection of paintings. He had an ordinarily busy day: wills, contracts, brief preparation, a bit of investment shuffling. It was pleasant to say goodbye in the morning to an Irene who was warm to him, not manifestly waiting for him to leave, and to return home for tea to an Irene who was happy to see him. He continued his habit of going to church so that he might sing with Irene, very quietly, and listen to her sing.

That afternoon when he came back from the office it was just he and Irene taking tea at first. His mother came in a few minutes later, sorting the late afternoon post. Some for his father, one for him from Parkes, one for Irene, and something for Emily herself that made her stop and set the rest on the mantelpiece.

“Mrs Lomax has written to me,” Emily said to Irene.

Soames put his teacup on the saucer and set it onto the tea table. There was no predicting what she’d written. Emily went to her writing desk, took out her letter-opener, and cut open the envelope. There was a single sheet of paper inside. Emily read it, with a hand to her throat, then handed envelope and letter to Irene. Soames watched her read: no reaction, nothing. Irene slid the letter back into the envelope and tucked it into a dress pocket. She said nothing, but picked up her own teacup as if nothing had happened.

He looked to his mother for an explanation. Emily said, “They will come to the wedding and do what they must. They will send her things.”

Soames looked at Irene again, but she again had nothing on her face for him to read. He decided to say nothing, but instead to nod at his mother.

Two evenings later, Irene played a Beethoven sonata for him, the Pathétique. This time she played not merely the second movement, but the whole piece. Soames listened intently. It was, he thought, one of those pieces she played as shelter, for comfort, like Mendelssohn. That second movement was so beautiful and sweet. She was recovering; pieces like this were the sign. She was so close to him now, so intimate. She had to be feeling what he felt, when she looked at him like that, with those dark eyes so deep and intent on him. She wasn’t smiling yet, but she would again soon.

---

Emily looked at her future daughter-in-law, in chemise and corset in her morning room, being fitted by Emily’s own dressmaker and an assistant. Emily had been dressed by this woman for years now, and was a most valued customer. Madame had been delighted to dress Miss Heron, who would surely be an excellent showcase for her work. Irene did indeed look good in whatever she wore, as Francie was alleged to have said. They were putting a toile on her, and she looked good in that, for goodness’ sake. Not that she was looking at herself in the cheval glass at all today.

Irene was quite polite through all of this, but Emily often had a sense that there was something she was dissatisfied with in the dressmaking. She often suggested colours that neither Madame nor Emily thought fashionable, or that lace was unnecessary. She had not ever created a fuss, or done anything more than suggest, but today she went so far as to mention that she had seen the most lovely silks at Liberty’s when she’d visited with Soames, which she thought might suit wonderfully. Madame looked at Emily, and Emily demurred, but said perhaps with the next dress. This was the wedding dress, and they were not going to experiment with this. Madame smiled, where Irene could not see it.

Poor dear girl. Such a trial the last few weeks had been for her. She was bearing up wonderfully.

---

Soames went into Agnew’s in the early afternoon in search of a very specific painting he’d spotted there. He’d seen a Morland, a painting of a roadside inn, that he was nearly certain was not an inferior copy and was of the man’s best period, before the drink had ruined him. Morland was going to do quite well, and he did enjoy the English school. He’d ended up loving the later Dutch realists more, but there was something about the solid English subject matter Morland had chosen. Stables, horses, dogs, toll-gates on rural roads: they all captured a past that was lost now that railways had thrown their web over the nation, and would be even more distant when motor-cars arrived.

The question was if it was a real Morland or not. Morland had been a rackety chap. This time Soames had his glass with him and could take a look at the brushwork and satisfy himself. He had a good idea of what the market was now, and what the market would be in forty years, and he’d learned already that his apparent youth gave him an edge in these negotiations.

The Morland was real, in his estimation, but he could see that the dealer’s man was unsure that it was, and this gave him a true advantage in the following negotiation. He emerged having paid two-thirds what the man had originally asked, which had been less than what the painting was worth to begin with. He had it sent to Park Lane. He would like to show Irene the sorts of paintings he collected, and start to learn what her taste was.

He returned home to Park Lane at tea-time, as usual, and greeted Irene with his usual gentle kiss. She seemed well, and to be in good spirits. He settled himself in the drawing room with the catalogue he’d collected from Agnew’s but not yet had the time to study in detail. The doorbell rang: visitors for tea. He could hear Winifred’s voice in the hall, which immediately made his already good mood brighter.

He rose when the drawing room door opened, and there was Winifred, with Publius in her arms, dressed in some long white thing, and the boy’s nurse trailing behind. Emily made a sound of great delight, kissed Winifred, and wasted no time snatching up her first grandchild to cradle in her own arms. Irene greeted Winifred, and the two embraced. Soames watched, and was moved. Winifred was so gentle with Irene, and Irene so relieved to be with her. The two were genuinely happy to see each other. The women all sat on the sofa, and there was cooing over the baby. Soames would once have cast up his eyes at it all, but no longer. There was still a raw hole in his chest where his daughter had been.

Emily handed Publius to Irene, and Winifred showed her how to hold a baby, hand just there, arm like that, and Irene looked down seriously at the boy, intent on learning her role. Soames’s heart ached to see it. She wanted a child as well, he thought. She understood. They would be parents together.

Then they offered the baby to him, thinking he would refuse, but he did not—he would of course hold the boy and show Irene how much he longed for this himself. He dandled Publius and looked down into those eyes for the second time—the boy had grown! His eyes were following things about now, and he could make happy burbling sounds. Soames’s heart ached again, looking down at his sister’s son. This time he would have a son of his own. He would hold his own boy like this, and be called Papa, or Pater, or Daddy—whatever he wished!—watch him grow and become a young man, watch him found his own family, be cared for by him when he grew old, the way Soames would care for James. His heart was so full he was in danger of it overflowing. He looked over at Irene and held her gaze across the room. She smiled at him, and he knew she felt it too.

He rose and carefully passed the boy to his nurse. Dartie’s son, but he’d turned out to be a Forsyte, a sensible lad, even if he hadn’t cared for his uncle at all. Perhaps he and this life’s Publius Valerius would get on.

“Where you learned how to do that, Soames, I’ll never know,” said Winifred.

Soames merely grunted, and sat down to have tea with the women of his family.

The Morland arrived after tea-time, safely crated. Soames unwrapped it and stood it against a chair in the drawing room. He stepped back and considered it. Yes, very definitely genuine, and of the best period, and the subject matter pleased him. The horse was particularly good, and the countryside behind the inn was well-realised, with the greens of summer England.

Irene came into the room and near him to see what he was looking at. “George Morland,” he said, and watched her face.

“It is an interesting painting,” she said, and that was said politely. She did not care for it, and was not inventing praise to placate him. Soames was pleased by the honesty. Irene would not tell him something she did not believe.

“He is not your painter,” Soames said to her. “Not all of them need be. I didn’t understand Fauré, after all. I have more painters to show you.”

She looked relieved at that. “I have more musicians for you as well. You have not heard any Liszt to speak of, never mind those transcriptions he has done of Wagner.”

“May I tell you what I admire in it?”

“Of course.”

“Morland at his best was an excellent draughtsman, and his subjects were what he found around him—the English countryside. Here we have a roadside inn, the sort of thing that doesn’t exist any more, but did when he painted it. He caught it as it was, and that horse was standing there, and there was a dog like that about the premises. His technique matters to the work—he applies the paint thickly, see here? The texture gives the horse’s tail movement and life. The same for the trees here. He observes well, and the technique gives the animals character. And his subject matter is a rural England that is long gone.”

Irene leaned close and studied the brushwork in the places he’d pointed to, and he could see her reconsidering the work. She didn’t like it any better, he thought, but she now saw a little of what he saw. “I think I understand something of what you like in paintings, Soames.”

“Oh?”

“You seem to feel most strongly about art that rescues something lost or vanishing. A moment of the past caught for you to imagine and dream over. It was in the very first painting you showed me, and it is in this one too.”

Soames opened his mouth, closed it again, and considered this insight. “There’s something to that,” he said, quietly. Irene stood with him a little longer, considering the painting with him, and then made her way back to the piano.

Soames carried the painting up to his room, where a number of others from his chambers had been moved, in preparation for a final move to the house when it was ready. The decorator was at work painting and papering—they were to meet him on the Thursday to discuss his progress—and it would not be long before the furniture started arriving.

After dinner, Irene beckoned him to sit by the piano while she played another Beethoven sonata for him, a late one, number 31, she said, opus 110. He’d never heard this before at all. He listened with tilted head, thinking. It was not an obvious piece at all to him. It wasn’t merely pretty, or showy, or passionate, but there was something else going on in that last movement. It was thoughtful, perhaps. This wasn’t a refuge piece or a comfort piece. It made him go inside and contemplate things, rather than feel. He watched her, as he always did, but she was intent on performance, not on signalling emotion or meaning save when body and sound could not help but unite in movement.

When it was finished, and she had turned to look at him, he said, “That was interesting.”

“Interesting?”

“I think that is the right word. It made me think. It was more oblique than the Pathétique. You said it was later?”

“He wrote only one more after it.”

“It felt like he was working out a puzzle or something like. The third movement had odd things in it. They were intentional, I could hear it, but—”

“I shall have to teach you what a fugue is. Not tonight.”

“Whenever you wish to. Thank you.”

“You are most welcome. Good night, Soames.” She stood, and he rose politely with her.

“Good night,” he said. She inclined her cheek for his kiss, and he gave it gently.

---

About a week later, the two sat together in the drawing room late. James and Emily had gone to bed. The door was ajar as propriety demanded, but the house was quiet and the servants were elsewhere. They had not been talking much that evening. The silence had been pleasant, not heavy. Soames had a novel, and Irene had a book as well. He was sitting close enough to her to reach out and touch her, but refraining from doing so because they were alone. He had been cautious about touching her since she’d fled Lymington. He wanted to, oh he wanted to touch her, but he had to be certain she wanted him.

He finished a chapter, and put his bookmark into place. He glanced up at Irene, to see how she was getting on, and saw that her book was closed. She was instead gazing into the empty grate in the fireplace, thinking. He reached out but stopped short of a touch.

She saw it and looked at him solemnly. He withdrew his hand. “Are you—?”

Irene stood and picked up a candlestick. She carried it over to the piano and set it on the nearby table. She then sat at the bench and beckoned him over. He stepped noiselessly over to the piano; there was no music on it, so he moved the chair back to where he could watch her without disturbing her.

She sat for a long moment, breathing deeply and slowly. Soames was about to ask her if she needed something from him when she began to play. He knew it immediately: Beethoven, the Appassionata, recognised from weekends turning pages back in Lymington for her while she worked on it.

This was not Irene working on it or struggling for it, though. This was Irene playing it. It was at proper tempo, and at the proper volume. She had found it.

Soames recognised it, but he was also hearing it for the first time. As he watched her hands and listened, something began to happen to him. It began to demand his full attention and he began to give it. He was caught by this sonata in a way he hadn’t been by the others. It was so intense and dramatic. It would return to that opening theme and he’d get a moment of peace that he knew wouldn’t last, and then it would burst back to drama. Irene’s shoulders and arms, her entire body, moved to get the sound of the more thunderous moments, and the sound vibrated through his chest. He could feel every note with his body. She was leaning into it. He held his breath through the quiet passages, wondering whether what would happen next was a blow to his heart or a moment of suspense and beauty and questioning over it all. That was just the first movement!

Irene paused and recollected herself. Perspiration rolled down her temples, and she was breathing in a way he’d never seen her need to breathe after playing.

The second movement was slower and less physically intense. Major key, almost delicate in places, singing, but the movement’s pull on his attention was as strong as the first movement’s had been, reaching out and gathering him in with a soft touch. He was utterly motionless through it, almost afraid to breathe. This was so lovely that he let himself sink into it. Why hold back? She was putting her entire self into this, she loved this piece so much. She was playing it for him, and him alone. He could let himself go for her, yield to it.

The third movement started without giving Irene a moment to rest, shifting abruptly back into that tempestuous—no, passionate—mode. It was fast, and demanding. His entire body was vibrating with it again. He leaned forward towards her, and saw how hard she was working to play it—the damp on her forehead, on her bodice. He’d thought he was aware of her before but that was nothing to how aware he was now. He was sweating in sympathy, his hands gripping the arms of his chair, holding himself in place desperately. God. Those right-hand stabs were stabs to his heart.

And then the ending! It was more of those blows to the chest, delivered by a woman striking the keys with her entire body, her fingers moving faster than he thought possible. He winced with each strike.

It ended, and the drawing room was silent.

Soames slumped and tried to catch his breath again. What had he just heard? He’d been swept away by it. Caught off guard, gathered up—he’d surrendered to it, and he was—content? No! The opposite. On fire. He—if he said anything to her now, it would be to tell her how much he needed—if he moved now, it would be to—he dared do nothing but breathe and watch her. Why had she done this to him?

Irene herself was still breathing heavily, hands braced on the piano bench. That performance had cost her. The Broadwood was heavy, she’d said, when she’d chosen an Érard instead.

Eventually Irene stood, though her breath was still fast. “Good night,” she said, and left the drawing room.

Soames stayed motionless where he was and let himself calm down. She’d played it through, as Clara Schumann had at the same age. She didn’t have the same command—she was still finding its meaning, but—she had done more than play it. She’d showed him what she’d called one of the most beautiful pieces of music ever, something she said ought to be shared, and she’d played it for him alone. She’d meant something by that. Did she—did she feel as much passion for him as he did for her? Was that the message? Passion, desire—surrender?

Eventually Soames stood and took the candlestick she’d carried over to the piano, and with it lit his slow way upstairs to bed.

---

XXV. If you’re anxious for to shine

Soames moved himself back to his chambers after that. Irene was safe from her step-father and fearing otherwise was absurd. Living in the same house with her had become more than he could bear. It felt like married life—was almost married life—in its intimacy, and he had begun to live in the same state of perpetual hunger he’d lived in once before. Not that moving back into his chambers helped; he was still in that state, merely further away from her. He’d taken all his paintings away, and it was bare and lonely now. He lay awake at night and thought about her and counted the weeks until October. Too many, too many.

He called every day at tea-time, and dined with her nearly every night, either at home with his parents or out at innumerable dinners with uncles and cousins. He tried to speak with her about the Appassionata, but she would look down and go silent. He didn’t understand it. He wanted to talk to her about it; it had moved him so, and he had thought it so important to her. He was missing something, and he knew it.

Miss Béranger was calling upon Irene almost daily, to talk or play duets together, which gave them both great pleasure. Soames had no idea there was so much composed for violin and piano together, but he was learning to enjoy it. Today George was not there, for once. Soames sat quietly to the side, drinking his tea, reading a dealer’s catalogue, hoping to spot something of interest. Lucie and Irene were talking quietly about his cousin George, and he paid attention despite himself.

“Alors, comment vas-tu, ma chère?” Lucie asked.

“Tout doucement. Et toi?”

“I’ve been to my father’s salon with George five times now. He did quite well at the most recent one. His French is improving greatly, and my father said after he left that he was not so objectionable for an Englishman.”

Soames pieced this together on the fly, but was fairly certain he understood her. Irene had no such difficulty; she laughed easily, and said, “Lui as-tu avoué tes sentiments?”

She’d laughed! It was the first laugh he’d heard since she’d returned to London, and he hid behind his catalogue when he heard it lest anyone see his face. That and what she’d said about how she was doing—softly? Something like that? He felt hopeful. Then Soames peeked over the top of his catalogue cautiously to see what Lucie was thinking. She looked uncertain and shy and quite young, to his older self.

Lucie said, “I do not know how I feel. I am happy when I see him. I am sad when he leaves and think about when I might see him next. I don’t know what this means or if this is anything more.”

Irene said, gently, “Je crois que c’est peut-être plus que de l’amitié.”

Lucie was silent. The expression on her face said that a great deal was going on inside her, uncertainty and not a little longing. To Soames’s eye, she was sweet on George, but unsure what that meant.

The pair continued talking, but Soames gave over listening. He quietly lifted the catalogue so he was safely hidden behind it. George knew his own mind better than the young lady did. Turning up at a French diplomat’s salon and doing his best was a stretch for a man like George; he was putting more effort into this than Soames had seen him put into anything before. The fellow certainly had reformed his finances to an astonishing degree. He was still casting about for some sort of profession suited to him, but he was at least looking for something, unlike that parasite Dartie. In fact—Soames thought he had an idea there.

Soames was himself hoping it came right for George. He’d come to like George more than he’d thought possible. The man had turned out to be both amiable and sweet-tempered. Irene approved of him. Soames himself thought him sound if lost and confused. He did hope George wasn’t destined for heartbreak.

Lucie said, “Quand vas-tu te remettre sérieusement à ta musique? Tu as l’opus 57—il le faut!”

“Je prends cela au sérieux, c’est pourquoi je peux le jouer.”

Soames held still for a moment, but they started talking about something he couldn’t follow, and he turned his attention back to the catalogue. He turned a page. Was that an Alfred Stevens? It was. Soames found himself sitting up straighter. He did love Stevens. The women he painted were so well-executed, their faces and skin and hair so realistic, their gowns so perfect for their time. He had loved his Stevens best of his collection in his later years. It hadn’t occurred to him to ask why until now, really. What had he loved about that painting? The way the woman in it had felt real? The way her depiction had called back to his younger days? The careful details of the painting? Stevens was quite skilled. Perhaps it didn’t bear examination: it was simply what he loved. But he thought it was the subject that he loved first, a beautiful woman in a beautiful gown, and the skill of the painter had drawn him in second. Stevens had painted a beautiful woman of his heyday, realistically, and he had loved looking at her.

What an odd situation Nemesis had put him in, that he could remember things that had yet to happen. Most days now he was so used to it that he didn’t think about it. He was himself, living a life, with the advantage of more practice at things, and of knowing what mattered and what didn’t in life. This was what they called wisdom, he supposed. He was as wise as the years in his head, beyond the years that showed on his face. Some days he would forget how dislocated he’d felt at the start of it, and then something would happen to remind him, or remind him of Fleur, and it would all rush back on him. Sometimes Fleur was a dagger in his heart, and sometimes a distant ache. Sometimes he was wistful for paintings he might or might not manage to find again.

Whatever the strangeness of his second life, this catalogue attracted him. He would have to look in at the auction. Strange that auctions did not strain his nerves. Social occasions made him break down and hide or go silent, but he could perform in an auction completely coolly, as well as in a negotiation with a dealer. It made no sense to him.

Irene and Lucie had finished their heart-to-heart, and Lucie looked as if she had taken some kind of resolution, he hoped in George’s favour.

The evening post had a letter from Parkes with a most interesting scheme that he took to Irene immediately. “Parkes wants to take us to see Patience at the Opera Comique and then to a late supper.”

“Oh!” Irene said. “I should so love to see it. I have heard it very well spoken of. When?”

“Saturday.”

“Perfection. Is he bringing someone?”

“He writes that he is. One of the many women he says he has been calling on. He does not mention which.”

“He did confess to me that he was unsure which of the young ladies had his heart. I was somewhat disappointed in him.”

“You were, were you. What did he say to that?”

“He looked embarrassed, and said he had not yet found the right woman. In fact, he said he envied you, for having found a soul-mate.”

“What?”

“That is what he said.”

Soames sighed. “I never know if Parkes is sincere about that or not.”

“I think he might have been. I think he is genuinely hoping.”

“I should have put him down as an eternal bachelor, but then I should have put George down for that as well, and look at him.”

“You think George is sincere about Lucie?”

“I know he is.”

“How do you know?”

Soames shook his head. “I can’t reveal why, but believe me, he is. If Lucie encourages him, he will declare himself immediately. Consider, though—the poor chap hired a French tutor.”

Irene laughed. “That is proof enough. But you think Gregory might still be a bachelor at heart?”

Soames shrugged. “He does not tell me anything other than that he enjoys the company of his many lady friends, and further, enjoys charming them and whispering sweet nothings to them. He’s had no shortage of young ladies he’s been calling on, never with any definitive outcome.”

“I wonder,” said Irene, quite thoughtfully, and they left it at that.

Soames called at Park Lane around half-past six on the Saturday, for they had arranged to meet there to proceed to the Opera Comique. Irene came down to greet him in the newest of her evening dresses, a magnificent creation in amber silk with white decorations. When Soames complimented it, Irene was reluctant to accept the praise.

“Don’t you like it?” he said.

“I do,” she said. “It’s a finer dress than any I’ve had.”

“But you don’t like something about it. Tell me?”

Irene sighed. Soames looked at the dress again, this time with a critical eye. “The colours suit you. It is a deeper colour than you prefer, but the ambers in it echo the darker colours in your hair. But—”

“The colours are good. But it is the trimmings and lace. I wouldn’t have chosen so much. The drape of the fabric matters more than all this.”

Soames bit his finger. “You want a different dressmaker.”

“A French one.”

“My mother would be—”

“Hurt. So I shall stay silent and appreciate her generosity.”

He touched his pocket. “I bought something to go with this dress. I hesitate now to give it to you.”

“Soames, please do not hesitate. You are most sweet, and your mother will love seeing it. But I would ask—”

“Tell me.”

“I am not sure about most pieces. I fear you will buy me a gift I cannot love with all my heart.”

“I think you might like this one. You lingered over it at Liberty’s.”

“Soames!”

He handed over the case. It was a striking necklace, this time an enamelled piece made of silver wire with a piece of raw amber at its heart, depicting an egg from which a phoenix had hatched in flames. Irene did not speak when she opened the case, but covered her mouth and burst into tears and laughter at once, and reached up to Soames to kiss him.

“I did linger over this,” she said, “but I thought you were distracted.”

“The assistant betrayed you. May I?”

“Of course you may.”

She turned to allow him to put the necklace on. He fastened the clasp, leaned forward, and whispered into her ear, “This is you playing the Appassionata for me.” Then he dared to brush a kiss over the clasp at the nape of her neck. Irene shivered and he made a soft sound that he hoped she could not know the meaning of. He stepped back from her and sighed. She was so beautiful and he loved her so and he ought not torment them both like that. The piece did suit the dress. It suited her neck and it suited her. It came to him that he was staring where he ought not, and turned away with his face burning. Irene took his hand and pressed it.

Parkes appeared at the appointed hour not with a young lady to introduce to them, but instead with George. They were both resplendent in evening dress, cloaks, and opera hats.

“I thought you were bringing a member of the fairer sex to join us,” said Soames.

“Alas,” said Parkes. “She was unable to join us.”

He did not look particularly happy about it, by Soames’s estimation, and that was surprising. Soames exchanged a glance with Irene. He was reminded of his earlier resolution to buy a drink for Parkes if this sort of thing happened. Well, he would arrange to be at the club Monday night.

George grinned at them with an ironic twist in his smile. “You must make do with me instead. I think I look stunning on Parkes’s arm.”

“Where is dear Lucie?” asked Irene.

George’s smile faded. “Back in Paris. I am alone and pining most desperately. This is why you must console me, dearest cousin Irene.”

“Oh, must I.” But she was smiling.

“I would be so grateful, that I would not mock your fiancé tonight.”

“That is very kind of you,” Soames said, tartly, but George knew he didn’t mean it. “You’ve been abandoned?”

George looked genuinely fretful. “For a week, she said.”

Irene looked at Soames. “We are surrounded by forlorn men.”

Soames said, “This is a comic opera, at least. Perhaps they’ll be cheered by it.”

“Let us go, then, so that they stop weeping on our shoulders.”

They left Park Lane, then, and entered the cab that Warmson had already secured for them, without being asked to do so. Irene sat next to George. She wound her arm through his and consoled him with soft words Soames could not catch, which George seemed to find encouraging. Soames took the opportunity to speak with Parkes.

“Let me buy you a drink Monday night,” he said.

Soames watched the gleam of Parkes’s eyes under his opera hat. Parkes was silent for a moment, then said, “Will you steal a cigarette?”

“Only if you insist.”

Parkes smiled briefly. “Can you dine?”

“Yes. Eight?”

“Right.”

And with that it was arranged. Irene was still speaking with George, whose good humour seemed to have returned, in the main. When they emerged from the cab, she came over to Soames to hold his arm on the way down the alley to the theatre. He caught her eye and she shook her head and whispered merely, “Later.”

The passage downward from the street stank of drains. Soames made a face and then smoothed it away, striving to keep himself indifferent and dignified. He wasn’t supposed to take notice. Down and then into the theatre, which was dug deep into the earth north of the Strand off Wych Street. What a terrible hole it was!

It was stifling inside the theatre, which was surely the worst Soames had been inside in either life. They found their way to the stalls: Parkes, Soames, Irene, then George. Parkes had bought quite wonderful seats. They had arrived on time for the opening nonsense, which was not what they had come to see. Soames paid little attention to it, instead watching his friends and fiancée and talking in low voices with them. The audience was, as a whole, doing the same, and the theatre was noisy until the orchestra began tuning for the main performance.

The gas lights in the auditorium lowered; the lights around the orchestra brightened. The overture began. The music was enjoyable; it was certainly much lighter in mood than the other orchestral things Irene had taken him to hear, much happier than all the tragic Italian operas he’d heard earlier in the summer. He supposed that would make sense for a comedy. It made its points without being spiky or difficult or modern; he could simply listen and be pleased without needing to study what it was trying to say to him.

The plot of Patience was the usual business with Gilbert and Sullivan, if he understood correctly: a chorus of love-sick maidens was sought after by a chorus of military men of some sort. In this case, it was a troop of dragoons, upset that an exactly equal number of rapturous maidens were not paying attention to them, but were instead all sighing after a poet chap named Bunthorne. Bunthorne was supposed to be Oscar Wilde. Or maybe it was Swinburne? Irene thought it was Swinburne, and whispered as much to him. Whichever, that fellow had no interest in the chorus of maidens, of course. It wouldn’t be interesting if he wanted any of the women chasing him. He had eyes only for the milkmaid Patience, who was lovely and pure and insisted on loving selflessly.

Swinburne—or Wilde, whichever—sang a song to the audience directly, very dramatically, about what a dishonest fake aesthete he was. He did not love dirty greens by any means; he was not fond of all one sees that’s Japanese. Soames laughed into his hand. The people around him weren’t trying to hide it; they were laughing out loud. Dirty greens, like the curtains they’d just chosen for the rooms upstairs. And the Japanese sun-shade they’d admired at Liberty’s. Bunthorne was a modern man!

The poet then sang about how to fool them all into thinking one aesthetic, by pretending a passion for vegetables and carrying a lily about. Soames found himself leaning close to Irene and shaking with laughter. She was shaking as well. His stomach ached with laughing. Would he pretend to love a not-too-French French bean to make Irene like him? Of course! He would carry a lily and swoon with it for her. The whole thing was absurd and delightful. And he did not need to pretend art stopped short in the cultivated court of the Empress Josephine. Had he installed Empire furniture into Winifred’s dining room? Indeed he had. This song was encored several times, which was decidedly not the sort of thing that happened at Italian operas in Covent Garden.

The milkmaid and the other poet fellow were the only honest people in the whole thing. He rather liked the other poet, Grosvenor, the one who had known the milkmaid as a boy. He was a good sort and a sincere man. Soames wouldn’t mind being him: he deserved the love of the milkmaid Patience. It was a much better sort of thing to be than Bunthorne.

And of course it all came right in the end, with everybody married off to the people they ought to be married off to: the dragoons to the maidens, the honest poet Grosvenor to Patience, and Bunthorne to nobody at all. The audience made a great deal of noise at the end.

The crush on the way out of the theatre was the usual mess. Soames undertook to pay a commissionaire to get them a cab. George directed the cab to where their late supper would be. He’d chosen the restaurant, of course, and as he said to them all, he wouldn’t have trusted any of the rest of them to have chosen a single nut. Further, he’d secured them a private room so they could eat and laugh and enjoy each other’s company in peace. The dishes and the wines were marvellous, and the champagne in particular was a relief after that hot and miserable theatre.

Soames particularly enjoyed that for once he could sit next to Irene at table and smile at her secretly and receive the gift of her smile in return.

George was in high good humour after the opera and Irene’s reassurances about Lucie. He pronounced himself more than willing to assume all the stained-glass attitudes needed to emit French platitudes to win the goodwill of Monsieur Béranger.

“Not Miss Béranger’s goodwill?” asked Parkes.

“She has already pronounced herself impressed by the lengths to which I am willing to go to impress her father. Mind, all I have managed thus far is to be declared not as objectionable as expected.”

“A triumph, surely,” said Irene.

Soames said, “You need to invite him to a late supper where you order the food and wine. If he isn’t impressed by that, he’s a fool.”

Parkes seconded this immediately. George looked quite pleased by these compliments, and drank more of his champagne with a self-satisfied glow. Parkes was pleased to toast him, but Soames thought Parkes was drinking more and laughing less than usual. Was he a man who’d been thrown over? That was surprising, but then, Parkes had been willing to introduce this young lady to Soames and Irene, and that had been unusual. Whatever the reason was, Soames felt better that he’d offered to buy Parkes a drink.

Irene was also drinking more of her champagne than usual, Soames saw, and he could not blame her: it was very good champagne. She touched Parkes’s arm and said, “Tell me, Gregory, what you made of the opera.”

Parkes blushed, to Soames’s surprise. Soames said nothing, however, but ate his bread and butter and watched quietly while Irene found a way to cheer Parkes up.

“It was quite amusing. I know nothing of Swinburne and that lot, but the velvet and poses and lilies and what not sent me into fits. I felt far more sympathy for that poet chap than I ought to have, perhaps. His scheme fell apart on him all at once, didn’t it?”

“It did indeed,” Irene said.

“Hoist with his own petard,” said Soames.

Parkes continued. “The business with them all chasing the handsome chap around no matter what he did was quite good. If he’s an aesthetic, they’re all wearing dirty green. If he’s a sensible City man, then they’re sensible girls. Everyone ended up married off correctly.”

George said, “Every dragoon gets a rapturous maiden.”

“Grosvenor gets Patience,” said Soames. Something rose in him—maybe the champagne, maybe being among the friends he loved best—and he dared.

“A Chancery Lane young man, a Somerset House young man, a very delectable, highly-respectable thrupenny-bus young man.”

“Forsyte sings,” said Parkes. “Forsyte sings.”

“Badly,” said George, “but he does sing.”

“You must own I’m a pushing young particle, what’s the next article Waterloo House young man.”

“Yes,” said Irene, “but you also approved the sage green curtains and the Japanese sun-shade for the garden.”

“Hush,” said Soames, knowing that the secret was already well out.

George, meanwhile, was enacting his astonishment by tipping his chair over backwards onto the floor while still seated upon it, very quietly.

The supper ended cheerfully around midnight, and the four of them left the restaurant arm in arm. They stood upon the pavement together for a moment, discussing how they were to return to their various homes. A hansom came by and hovered in hope. Parkes hailed it. Soames looked at him in a little surprise.

Parkes smiled a little impishly and said, “This is for you two. In you go.”

Parkes helped Irene into the hansom. Soames tapped Parkes on the shoulder in thanks and tucked himself into the hansom next to Irene. Parkes shut the doors on them both and gave the cabbie the Park Lane address. Away they went.

Soames looked sidelong at Irene, and saw her looking at him, smiling mysteriously. She touched his gloved hand with hers.

“It was a lovely evening,” she said. “I enjoyed every moment.”

“I as well. What was that business with George?”

“I told him not to fret. Lucie has gone to Paris for a cousin’s wedding, and she has already written to me to ask after him.”

“Good. I’m happy for him.”

Hansom cabs were so intimate, so small and enclosed. They were touching each other from hip to knee; they didn’t have to be, but they were. Her scent surrounded him, roses and honey. Soames turned his head and there she was, looking at him, dark eyes unreadable, her lips so close he could feel her breath. The champagne sang in his blood.

“Did—may I ask—did you change your scent since you were—since April? It’s deeper than it used to be.”

Her lips curved in her little smile. “I did, yes. Your mother took me to a perfumer, and we had a long consultation. Why do you ask?”

“I do so love it.” That, in a low voice.

He leaned close slowly, so slowly, giving her every chance to move away, and then they touched. The kiss lingered, then he made a sound of pure need and they kissed again, and again, all through the long ride, until Irene broke away and touched his lips with gloved fingers.

“We are nearly arrived,” she whispered.

Soames sat straight and smoothed his coat. Damn. That cab ride could have lasted forever as far as he was concerned.

The driver called to the horse and the hansom came to a smooth halt. Soames opened the hansom doors, helped Irene out, and escorted her to the door. He saw her inside and climbed back into the cab to ride back to his chambers, torn between frustration and delight at those kisses. Two months left to endure until their wedding.

XXVI. Irene escapes again

Dinner with Parkes at the Connoisseurs was a quiet affair. Parkes had less of his usual glossy ease and seemed more melancholy, but possibly only someone close to him would have noticed. He and Soames talked about impersonal things, and any attempt Soames made to bring the conversation over to Parkes’s private life was quietly ignored, in favour of bland conversation about some school-fellow who’d moved to America recently. After a light meal, they sat in Parkes’s corner in the smoking room with whiskies. Parkes had his usual cigarette between two fingers. He flicked at it nervously, letting it burn down without smoking it.

Soames let them both drink a little before he spoke. “Shan’t pry, but tell me if you like.”

Parkes sighed. “Nothing to tell. She agreed to come but was indisposed in the evening.”

“I hope she recovers well.”

Parkes shook his head. “She’s been indisposed twice now. I think I shall stop calling on her. I have recently met a simply lovely young lady near Richmond, who has asked me to ride with her. I think I’ll call on her instead.”

“Parkes,” said Soames, softly.

“I suppose I sound heartless,” said the man. “I’m not. I’m a bit stung, in fact. I liked the young lady. Still, she is saying she’d like me to withdraw, very delicately, and it is my duty to hear it and withdraw.”

“I suppose so,” said Soames. He fidgeted with his whisky glass and turned it around and around in his fingers. He himself had not been as graceful at being told no.

Parkes went on. “I suspect I shall never meet my Miss Heron. It is likely the bachelor life for me. I shall of course continue to meet lovely women and continue to entertain the notion.”

“Well, that’s an elegant excuse to flirt with them all.”

“Isn’t it, though?” Parkes smiled brightly at him.

Parkes lit another cigarette, and Soames seized his chance to steal his single smoke for the evening. He contemplated Parkes through the curling blue haze. Was this bravado? What did Parkes feel, truly? He’d known Parkes since they were boys, and he was quite certain Parkes had feelings about the matter, though apparently he intended to keep them well-hidden behind his white shirtfront. But still, one wondered. He crossed one knee over the other and changed the subject.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said. Parkes snorted softly, and Soames glared at him, though without heat.

“I’ve been thinking,” he said again, “that my cousin George has some skill that might benefit you. He’s been joining his father valuing house property since he was a boy. His father does very well with it. I took George along with me to consider a house on Montpellier Square.”

“Good location, bad reputation, might rise,” Parkes said, almost automatically. He put his cigarette to his lips and drew.

“That was his initial judgement as well. Said it would depend on the price and the size. Then when we went to view it, he told me he’d snap it up before his father got it if he had the means. So I did. He doesn’t have your eye for condition, though.”

Parkes laughed softly. “You heard me complain I had more money than I could usefully employ, and this is what you do.”

“Better than putting it in consols,” Soames said, dryly.

Parkes tipped back his head and blew a long stream of smoke at the ceiling. “I thought he was a gentleman of leisure.”

“He is now a gentleman attempting to acquire the means to provide for a household.”

Parkes sat up and stared at Soames. “The poor devil. Why didn’t he tell me this?”

“Too proud, I think. You might want to put it to him as doing you a favour.”

“Well, then. I’ll see what he makes of himself.” Parkes put his feet up again on the footstool and resumed his slouch.

Soames blew a smoke ring. He’d improved his skill with them over the last months, one stolen cigarette at a time. “Do you like your tobacconist? And how many cigarettes a month do you order?” he asked Parkes.

Parkes held his cigarette sideways before his face. “My tobacconist is quite good, as you well know, you thief. Sullivan Powell, in the Arcade. And I take fewer than you think. I only smoke here. Set my armchair on fire once and my valet has forbidden me from smoking at home. Hollis rules me with an iron fist.”

“Set your—”

“One bottle of Pol Roger too many. You’d gone home like a sensible chap and there it was.” Parkes laughed, and yes, there was the bravado.

“Oh, I remember that night.” Soames tapped ash into the dish on the table between them and resolved to invite Parkes to dinner more often.

---

On the following Sunday afternoon, Soames sat in the drawing room at Park Lane on the sofa with Irene. The door was open, and Emily was in and out of the room, but they were otherwise alone. Irene’s hands were clasped in his and they were sitting close together, talking quietly about small things. He was distantly aware of his mother opening the door, walking past, then leaving the drawing room again, but he didn’t think it worth interrupting this moment with her.

Irene told him about when she’d first realised she was more skilled than anyone around her at playing the piano, and her father had taken steps to get her the best teachers he could find. She’d been fond of her father, and she smiled telling stories about him. He’d never heard this before; it touched him deeply to hear her talk of her childhood to him. Every moment of it was something to treasure.

In return he told her about the boyhood tutor who’d tried to teach him draughtsmanship. His mother had noticed how much time he spent looking at his father’s paintings, and how much he enjoyed visits to galleries, and had thought to see if he would enjoy learning how to do it himself. The tutor had rapped the knuckles of his left hand with a ruler every time he tried to pick up a stick of charcoal or a pencil with it, and he’d been frustrated trying to do anything with his right hand. It was a less pleasant story, and not one he’d ever felt comfortable telling to anyone before. Irene kissed the fingertips of his left hand gently, and he caressed her face with them for a long moment.

“What do you dream of?” he asked her. “What do you wish we could do together?”

“Travel. See parts of France I haven’t yet seen.”

“We shall do this.”

“Where would you go?”

“I will always suggest Rome to you. I’ve only been once, and I should like to visit again with you. It is such a beautiful city, with light that I cannot describe. And there is peace there. No rush or bustle, no work or fretting. Warm sun on the marble and wine and good food.”

“Are you a secret hedonist, Soames?”

“A secret sensualist.” He gave her a shy smile, and she smiled back.

“What is it that you dream of, when you daydream during those concerts?”

He half closed his eyes, and thought about what he wanted most, in those moments when he was drowsing in his bed, on his way down to sleep. “Oh, so many things. Mostly—our honeymoon. Paris nights together. Being able to, to—to be together at last. And—”

“Our—our honeymoon,” Irene said.

Soames made a sort of humming noise, thinking about it. She’d told him she’d surrender to him when she’d played the Appassionata for him. It had been so intense and he’d been so moved by it in exactly the way she’d described that day when they’d listened to the Emperor Concerto together. And now, as they sat together, holding hands, talking so intimately, he felt such warmth that he thought he might say it. She had given him all the signs it would be welcome, so he would say it, and share his dreams with her.

His voice dropped to a whisper. “I’ve told you this, I think. My dearest dream is—is a home in the country, on a river, the Thames perhaps, where I can punt and fish. Do you remember this?”

“I do. You talked about watching the birds.”

“Yes. There are so many birds near rivers. But the house—at the house we have cows and horses.”

“For a carriage?”

“Yes, and for the children to ride.”

“Children?” Irene seemed surprised.

“Yes. We have children. Two, just two. Young James, of course. I think he looks like you, nothing like me, golden hair, handsome. And a daughter. I do so want a daughter. I think—I know what we’ve named her. I—may I tell you what—”

Irene shifted next to him, and her skirts rustled. She was looking away from him. “I am not certain I want children at all.”

Soames’s chest tightened. “No children? I—”

“I don’t want, that is, I’m not ready to think about—”

“But we’ve talked about this. I thought you wanted—”

Irene said, more firmly, “I’m not sure I would like even to risk having children.”

Not even risk it? But that meant—hadn’t she—she hadn’t spoken to him about this at all, hadn’t given him a hint. No children. He wouldn’t be a father. No son to set into James’s arms, no Young James to fulfil James’s deepest wish. No little Fleur to hold in his own arms. His chest hurt, his heart felt as if it were shattering. How could she do this to him without asking?

He said, “What do you mean, not even risk it?”

Now she looked him in the eyes. “I mean not do things that might—”

She meant not to allow him into her bed. His heart felt as if someone had set a hot iron to it. His head swam. This was worse. This was what it had been before, the old aching hunger, the deliberate distance and unbearable longing. He felt himself moving from his body and what it was feeling.

“You can’t mean this,” he said. “You can’t decide this on your own.”

“Soames, let me explain—”

“Stop,” he said. “I won’t hear it.”

No children, no son, no daughter, no embracing—why did she even want to marry him? What was this marriage even for? Why were they discussing it? He didn’t know where he was. He should stop speaking. He should shut his mouth and stop. He should walk away and calm down.

Instead his hands tightened and his fingertips dug into her palms. He said, “You have a duty to me and to the marriage and you will do it.”

“Duty?” Irene’s face had gone very still and her eyes were wide.

“We shall have children,” he said, in a voice as cold as the North Sea. She could not dare deny him. Marriage was for the procreation of children. A son. A daughter.

There was utter silence between them. Soames was furious still, his body shivering with something that he didn’t dare think about, because if he thought about it he would sob out loud. He was only barely aware that she’d pulled her hands away. Irene’s eyes were locked with his. She had shrunk away from him on the sofa, but she was not backing down.

“Excuse me,” Irene said, with complete calm despite his anger. “I need a moment.” She rose from the sofa and left the drawing room.

The door closed behind her. The drawing room fell into a deep hush. Soames sat up on the sofa, still shaking. The fury faded as fast as it had rushed through him, and he was left feeling sick, hands trembling from its after-effects. What had just happened? His body felt cold without her near him, empty without her hands in his and her eyes to look into. What had he just done? He’d told her—He’d said things he ought not to have said. He’d said things he did not even feel.

He rubbed his hands together anxiously, then soothed himself with thumb on signet ring. He’d lost his temper. Damn. Why had he said that? He didn’t understand himself. He ought to have kept control. He ought to have asked her what she meant. But if she didn’t want children—God, that was a blow. He had dreams. He could see little James and little Fleur. He could imagine them in his arms and in hers. He ached for the want of them. He ached for Fleur. He missed her so much some days. To think that no one would call him Daddy ever again was—it was as if someone had punched him in his stomach. He hadn’t expected to feel that when she’d said it. There was a great empty place in his heart where Fleur had been and he’d hoped—but Irene would deny him the joy of children again. Unshed tears stung him, and his throat closed up. The anger was entirely gone and all that was left in him was the grief.

Soames sat in the drawing room with his head in his hands. She didn’t want to give what he wanted most, beyond her love. Surely she didn’t mean it. He had taken her by surprise, perhaps. He would apologise. He would tell her he hadn’t meant to be angry. He would explain himself, he would give her a chance to think it over, surely she would see it was an ordinary thing for a man to want. Surely she would understand he hadn’t been unreasonable. Perhaps she would see her way to consenting to it. They would talk.

He heard Warmson’s voice in the hall, and the front door opening and shutting—someone leaving. His mother and father on their Sunday afternoon call to Timothy’s, no doubt. Thank goodness his mother hadn’t come in again to check on them both. Soames was in no mood to deal with his mother’s well-meaning questions just now. He could only barely imagine speaking to Irene. He was only just now regaining control of himself.

Soames stood and paced, piano to fireplace, back again. He always paced when he was like this, back and forth. Annette had clucked her tongue at him and told him to stop being foolish; Irene had ignored him back then, the first time round when she’d hated him. It helped, though. He calmed down and the sickness in his stomach eased.

Where was she? It had been twenty minutes, longer. He must have upset her more than he’d thought. He’d go find her and make his apologies.

Soames went out into the hall, where he encountered Warmson hovering, as if he were expecting Soames to appear. His stomach felt odd again.

“Warmson, where is Miss Heron?”

“She left about ten minutes ago, sir.”

Soames flinched then controlled himself. “Left? Did she say where she was going?”

“No, sir.”

Warmson’s face was as expressionless as ever, but Soames knew his own was not. He bit his lip, thinking hard. Perhaps she’d taken a walk to try to think it through. Perhaps she was as upset as he had been. He had to give her time to think.

“Thank you,” he said. “Please let me know when she returns.”

He turned away from Warmson and mounted the stairs two at a time, up two flights to his room. He closed the door and flung himself on his bed. He lay on his back and stared at the ceiling. In this safe place he soothed himself and tried to re-order his thoughts. He’d upset her; he understood that. He wanted a walk himself; it made sense that she had taken one. What would he do when she returned? He had a small trove of music here in his room waiting to be given to her at opportune moments, from that seemingly endless fountain of work by Liszt to that odd Brahms chap to Chopin to all these modern Frenchmen. He could make amends with that.

He’d read the Appassionata wrong, hadn’t he. She’d gone silent every time he’d mentioned it because he’d asked about the wrong thing. It wasn’t passion as desire alone. It was passion and storm and violence and intensity. She’d meant something else by it. What?

She was not in the house. He could not lie here without knowing where she had gone. He sprang up and with his noiseless step made his way out to the hall and across to the door that was hers.

He went into her room, propriety be hanged. This had once been Winifred’s room, and he’d been in it many times through his youth to talk to his sister about life, growing up, school, their parents, anything at all. Now it was ghosted over by Irene’s presence, her scent, her taste, her music books, the book from the lending library she’d been reading, the silver-backed brushes he’d given her. Soames shivered with longing for her. She’d left everything. There were pins and oddments on the dressing table, and the brooch and the necklace he’d given her from Liberty’s. Beside it lay the pouch she wore around her neck with the money he’d given her for emergencies, the money she’d used to get here. Soames touched it, estimated—four sovereigns left inside, and some smaller coins. She hadn’t taken any money. Surely she could not have gone far, or meant to have gone for very long?

He slipped out of her room before he could be noticed, and made his way back to his boyhood room quietly. He would wait until tea time, and surely she would be back by then. He hadn’t—he hadn’t done what he’d done before. He’d spoken out of turn, no more. He sat at his desk and took out pen and paper. He wrote a short note to her, saying that he loved her and he begged her forgiveness. He folded it up, sealed it with a splash of wax, and pressed his signet into it. Then he sat and watched the wax cool, rubbing his thumb over his initials on the ring absently. It was tea-time and he had to go down. He went into the hall and slid the note under the door of her room, then made his way downstairs to the drawing room. She was not there; his parents were. His mother looked at him oddly, and there it was, the question. Where was Irene?

“She went out in the late afternoon.”

“When is she expected back?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where did she go?”

“I don’t know.”

“Soames, my dear boy, what happened? I saw you talking, and you seemed quite happy.”

“I lost my temper.”

“What on earth about, Soames?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. He sat down for tea with them, but could only hold his cup while he listened for the door. Nothing. He couldn’t bear this, and he couldn’t bear his mother’s sympathetic glances any more.

“I’m going to my club,” he told her. “Please send word there if she returns.”

“Of course, dear.”

Soames walked out without another word. Not his club, not yet. Looking at Parkes would remind him of what he ought to have done. He walked to his chambers to see if there was any post there: nothing from her. Here he could be truly alone, and he let himself be alone, curled up around a pillow on his bed, cursing himself with bitter words, counting hours since she’d left, wondering if she’d gone back to Lymington, to the home of one of her Conservatoire friends, to a hotel, to somewhere he could not guess.

It was so easy to tip over into what it had felt like when she’d left him in that previous life, when he’d truly transgressed. His heart had been shattered and he hadn’t wanted anyone he knew to see him. That long failure of spirit had been a great hole in his life, in which he’d done nothing but work. He could feel that despair reaching out for him again. It was foolish. She had only been gone for a few hours. This was nothing like then, when she had told him plainly how much she loathed him and wanted to escape from him. When he’d deserved it. This time all he’d done was lose his temper and say things he could apologise for, if only he could find her.

Where was she? What was she doing? Had something happened to her? Had she left him for good? Had he lost her?

She’d escaped from him again, hadn’t she. He’d failed again.

---

Part 3

XXVII. Soames faces facts

Soames could not stay where he was any more. If she had returned to Park Lane already, word was waiting for him at his club while he was lying here feeling incapable of speaking to anyone. He rolled off the bed and tried to get himself in order again. He’d behave as if nothing had happened. He’d eat dinner, have a drink, wait for news.

He changed, because the club wouldn’t let him dine there if he did not. He made himself look presentable, brushed his hair, straightened his white tie. What did it matter? He would go and wait for a message.

He walked to his club and once there, realised there was no possibility he could eat. He went to the smoking room, hoping to find Parkes so he could sit and say nothing at all to him and perhaps feel better knowing there was someone who thought him not worthless.

Parkes was there, in his usual spot, with what looked like a set of architectural drawings. Soames came over quietly. He sat next to Parkes and said nothing at all in response to his greeting.

Parkes tried again. “Hallo.”

“Yes.”

“Come to find out how your cousin is getting on?”

“No.”

“Did you dine here?”

“No.”

“Did you dine at all?”

“No.”

“What the hell is going on? Out with it.”

Soames said, “Nothing at all.”

“Stuff and nonsense. Forsyte. What’s wrong?”

Soames sighed, and gave in. “Irene left Park Lane.”

Parkes sat up. “What d’you mean?”

“She left. Walked out. We argued and she left. They’re supposed to send word here if she comes back but they haven’t. I couldn’t stand them looking at me any longer.”

He lowered his head into his hands. Parkes set a hand on his shoulder and Soames flinched. “Steady, Forsyte, steady.”

“She left without anything. She didn’t take any of the money I gave her in case of emergency.”

“None?”

“No. She just… left it. And everything else.” She’d done this before, in that first life. She’d left all the things he’d given her. Her note had said it—nothing he or his people had given her. It was happening again. He spun his ring around and tried to soothe himself. It was no good, of course. He’d done it again. He’d threatened her again. She’d walked away from everything he was, even the things he’d given her out of love. She’d rejected all of him.

“I don’t know where she is. I don’t know if she’ll come back.”

“Why do you think she’s run off?”

“I was angry with her and… said things.”

“It must have been something more than that, Forsyte. She wouldn’t have run off for a lover’s tiff. That woman thinks the world of you.”

Soames sighed. “It was more.”

Parkes laid a hand on his shoulder and leaned in. “Tell me,” he said, very quietly.

“We were talking about the future. Dreams. Wishes. It was lovely—we were so—” Soames broke off and shook his head. “I told her about wanting children. And she said she didn’t know if she wanted children at all. I lost my head. I spoke… harshly.”

“I know you in that humour. You are a brute and a bastard.” Soames said nothing. Parkes stared at him grimly. “So she walked out on you.”

“Yes.”

“Good for her.”

That stung. Soames reared back his head and stared at Parkes. Why did Parkes take her side in this?

Parkes went on. “What made you behave like a brute?”

“She—I thought she felt the way I did.”

“Did you ask her?”

“I—no. But she ought to have consulted me before deciding.”

Parkes tapped Soames’s knee. “And did you ask her, before you decided you wanted them? See it her way, old man. Dare say I’d think twice myself, if I were a woman. Never heard a single good thing about the whole business.”

“Women are supposed to want it. Having children. Being mothers.”

“She wanted to be a concert pianist, Forsyte, not a mother. You decided to fall in love with one of the most unusual women I’ve ever met, and now here you are, wanting her to be usual.”

“She said she didn’t want to chance having them. That means—”

“No, it doesn’t.”

“She meant it that way.”

Parkes studied his face, and became even more serious. “Look here, have a drink. Calm down. When you can have a rational conversation, we’ll talk.”

“I am rational—”

Parkes laid a firm hand on his knee and Soames shut his mouth. “You’re not, old man. Drink. I’ll be back in a moment.” Parkes stood and vanished from the room.

Soames accepted the whisky from a waiter who came over a moment later, and drank. It tasted of nothing, but it had a kick on his empty stomach. Parkes was right: he wasn’t rational. His feelings had always been too much for him, and they were too much for him now.

Was he a brute when he was angry? It had been a long time since he’d been angry as he’d been regularly in his younger days, or during that first marriage, but he was aware that he’d spent his twenties and the entirety of his first marriage in a constant irritated sulk. There had been a handful of times in his life when he’d been truly enraged. This hadn’t been one of them. This had been more like—more like those early days of marriage, when he’d been thwarted, when she’d been so cold to him no matter what he did and he’d sulked and fumed. Or when she’d hurt him and he’d lashed out. He remembered that last day again, when he’d tried to hurt her even though he had desperately wanted her to stay with him. He hadn’t been able to think straight or feel one coherent thing. It had all been a jumble of frustrated misery. He’d said things. He remembered them now. He remembered her sitting there, with her lover dead, looking broken. He’d flung it in her face. That alone was unforgivable.

Shame welled up in him again. He couldn’t make amends for that, either, could he.

Parkes came back and pulled his chair closer to Soames’s. He sat down again, and picked up his own drink.

“Have you used that clever brain of yours, Forsyte, and puzzled this one out?”

“I am a brute,” Soames said, quietly. “I hadn’t realised how much of one.”

“Have you ever listened to yourself?”

“No.”

“You’re silent, generous but shirty if anyone takes notice, and an absolute bastard when you’re angry.”

Soames watched the glowing tip of Parkes’s cigarette, and imagined himself burning up in it from pure shame. The back half of his life had been a different thing, but until Fleur had been born he’d been either working or deeply frustrated. He’d known how to be a lawyer, a son, a brother. He hadn’t known how to be anything else, but he’d wanted to be, and every failure had frustrated and angered him. He had never worked out how to be a husband. He’d wanted to do it, but it had eluded him. Fleur had been the balm that had soothed him despite his failures. Now he was without her and he had to be that better man despite the hole in his chest where she’d been.

“Damn,” he said, very quietly. “Damn me.”

Parkes wrapped an arm around his shoulders and Soames leaned into him. This was not a thing he’d ever done before and it felt strange but comforting. “Steady. You’ll put it right. Apologise.”

“If I can find her, I’ll grovel.”

“Not sure that’s what she’ll want.”

“How do you know?”

“I’d kick you if you grovelled.” Parkes released him, and sat back to light a cigarette.

Soames thought about this. He wanted her to understand what he’d meant in the moment, and know that he hadn’t been assuming anything—no, he had been assuming. But he could tell her it had hurt to have his dreams halted so abruptly. He couldn’t tell her about Fleur, and how much he longed for something like her in his life again, but he could tell her he wanted to be a father. And he could apologise for having been a brute. He had to do that, at the very least.

What did Parkes mean about Irene being unusual? Did she not want what women usually wanted? Did she not want a family and a good household and pretty clothes? Did she want only music in her life? Did she even want him in her life? What did she want? He thought he’d begun to understand her but he hadn’t. He’d made a mess of it again, failed to understand her, sulked and been frustrated and angry. She had left him again because he hadn’t known what to do with his feelings or how to talk to her when they were too much for him. He had to tell her what he felt, no matter how hard it was to talk about, and he had to ask her what she wanted, no matter how hard it was to give her that. Love wasn’t desire alone.

Why couldn’t he be like Parkes? Why couldn’t he be like other men? They all seemed to know what to do, how to be graceful and calm and how to say what they meant straight out without making a muddle of it.

Soames drank his whisky, shoulder brushing against Parkes’s for comfort all the while, and tried to think it out. Nemesis was punishing him for his sins, that he knew. He’d been warned. He’d been told he had to get it right, and he’d got it wrong. Well, Forsyte, get up off the floor and face what you’ve got wrong. Try again. Set it right. Beg her forgiveness and tell her what you’ll do to get it right next time. What else could he do?

“I have to ask her what she wants,” he said to Parkes. “I have to ask her why. Shut my mouth and listen.”

Parkes tapped cigarette ash into a dish. “You are sometimes the dimmest brilliant man I know.”

Soames looked askance at Parkes, then finished his whisky. “What do I do now?”

“Ask yourself where she’s gone.”

Soames gave Parkes a doubtful look. “Ask myself—” He fell silent, and it came to him he knew where she’d gone. She’d told him in one of her letters, when she’d written about living in London as a girl. The Round Pond.

“Go to her,” Parkes said.

“Thank you,” Soames said. He tentatively touched Parkes’s shoulder, unsure how to do it exactly. It must have served, because Parkes put an arm around his shoulders again and shook him gently in return. Soames made his way out of the club and out into the night. He knew where to find her, but he did not know if she’d receive him. And if she did choose to speak to him, what would she tell him? Why didn’t she want to chance having children? Would her reason be something he could bear?

He had to ask anyway.

XXVIII. Embassy

The Park gates were closed at that time of night, but it did not matter for anyone who knew how to avoid the gates and slip in by any of a dozen other ways into its dark wilderness, through underbrush, under trees, along the water’s edge.

The Park was in the middle of the most civilised place in the world, the beating heart of it all, and it was dim and silent and frightening to Soames. What must Irene be feeling? The moon was already setting, and the gibbous light cast eerie shadows from trees that in daylight were calm managed things. Bushes and flowers had become wild undergrowth. Soames walked along the by-ways through Kensington Gardens, under the shelter of the elms, where it was so dark he could not see his hand before his face. He followed its paths into darkness. There were others in the Park, dark figures seated at the bases of the trees, in couples or alone, but all was hushed. Sheep clustered in the fields; lost souls clustered under cover of elms and bushes.

Soames walked silently on the grass, careful to avoid the watchmen that would see him off if they spotted him. They might have spotted her before now, if she had not been wary and known to listen for boots on gravel. Worse still might have befallen her, for the Park was not safe.

Ahead was the pond. He approached carefully, scanning the benches. He stopped when he saw the figure of a woman seated alone, where the moonlight filtered through the trees. He could see her silhouette against the light: Irene. Her head was sunk down on her chest. Sleeping? Then she stirred and looked around. No. She’d be awake all night, watching. Soames stopped and thought for a moment about what he was going to say. Was he ready for this? As ready as he could imagine himself being: completely unready, and desperate to speak to her.

He made his way to the gravel path and walked deliberately towards her, boots noisy on the gravel, taking care that she could see him, slowly enough that she would not be afraid of him. He stopped a few feet away from her and took off his hat.

“Good evening,” he said. “May I speak with you?”

She studied him carefully. He held himself very still, doing his best to signal how safe he was, how unthreatening. His hands were behind his back, his head down.

“You may,” she said at last.

“Thank you.” He took two steps closer. “May I sit with you or would you prefer me to stand?”

“You may sit.” She indicated the far end of the bench.

“Thank you.” He sat, and set his hat between them on the bench. He had some words ready, but now that he was next to her, he had difficulty saying them. She looked as if she were cold. He didn’t know if he could offer her his coat or if she would accept anything at all from him. It troubled him; he could not bear that she was cold. He had to bear it for now.

After a minute of uncertainty, he said what he had prepared. “Irene, I wish to apologise to you and to explain something to you, if I may, and then to ask how I might make amends.”

“I am listening.”

Her voice gave nothing away about what she might be feeling. He felt at sea, shipwrecked. What was he to do, how was he to guess what she wanted? He could not. He had to say what was in him to say.

“I behaved badly. I am ashamed of myself. I ought not to have spoken to you that way. I didn’t mean what I said, though I know it is difficult to credit that.” He peered at her to see how she was accepting this, but he could not see her face well enough to know. He could only press on.

“I am sorry. I—that is one thing I need to say. The other is to explain why. Why I reacted that way. I don’t mean to excuse my behaviour. I mean to tell you how I felt, if I may.”

Silence, then her voice, calm and controlled, not the least timid or frightened though she sat here in the dark. “You may.”

“You asked me to tell you what I dream about. I told you my dearest wish, the thing I want most. I want to be a father, so very much. Your response was—it was not something I could—I didn’t know what to do when I heard it. My heart felt as if it were shattering.”

He touched his chest under his coat. It was aching again.

He hung his head. “I never know what to do. I know there’s something I don’t understand about how to get on. I lash out instead of—I should have done something else. Walked away. Written a letter. Something, anything, I don’t know! But—”

“But?”

“Instead I failed you. But that isn’t the worst.”

He sat silent. Irene simply watched him, equally silent. Now he came to it. To the thing that had sent her running from his father’s house.

“I’m afraid of myself,” he said, eventually.

“How so?”

“You’ve seen me angry. You’ve managed things to avoid it happening. You’re right to do it. I have lost control a very few times in my life but I am afraid of myself when it happens. I say things I don’t want to say, I watch myself saying them and I can’t stop. I have… done things. I’m on watch against myself, you must understand. I have to be on guard against myself. I’m not a good man.”

He looked up at her. She was staring at him in the moonlight, unblinking, unyielding. What was she thinking?

He swallowed painfully. “I know I must not make demands of you and I remind myself to behave otherwise and yet something in me still wants it to be so. I want to tell you what you must do, what sort of wife you must be, demand that you give me what I dream about. I know I should not but the urge is there.”

And now, the hardest thing he had to say.

“I may not demand children from you. It is your life at risk. I must defer to you, even if it hurts. I accept it.”

And well he knew that, having spent hours pacing, wondering if Annette would live or die, wishing it were not he who had to choose. He could not choose for Irene, would not ever do so. He looked up at her to see if she was still listening to him. She was. Her face was unmoving, but she was intent on him, not looking away.

“Irene. I’m sorry. Please tell me how I might set it right. I wish to so very much.”

She was silent for some time, but did not look away from him. He forced himself to keep looking at her no matter how hard it was.

At last she spoke. “Soames, I need to tell you—I need to—I can’t. I can’t.”

She turned away from him and wrapped her arms around herself. Whatever it was she had just tried to say had been too much for her. Soames wanted to reach out to her; he held himself back. He could not touch her. He waited for her to regain her composure with his own hands trembling.

Irene turned back to him, and in a different voice said, slowly, “I would like to ask you for something first, before I try to tell you what I need to say. May I do so?”

“Of course,” he said. He clenched his hands in his gloves.

“I respect you, Soames. You are a good man despite what you say. You have almost always been kind and respectful and loving to me. But today you showed me why you are afraid.”

Soames hung his head. “I know. I don’t deserve—” He turned away from her and ground his teeth.

“No. Soames. Don’t. You are not alone responsible for today. I have not—I have not told you—there are things I ought to have said to you.”

She had his full attention now. He watched her as closely as he could in the waning moonlight.

“I am going to ask you for something, and then I will tell you why. This is my request. I want—I want my own money. Something that is mine alone. The means to leave you and keep myself.”

“You want—”

“I do.”

He knew why. He knew why. He swallowed painfully.

“Will you do it?” she said.

Soames was silent for a long moment, thinking. She hadn’t asked him to set her free, but she had asked for him to give her the means to set herself free. The oath he’d sworn on his honour and proved himself honourless over: Nemesis had thrust her sword through him here as well, and was forcing him to live up to it. And now he knew why he must. She was sitting here on a bench with nowhere to go, penniless, and it was his doing. He hated seeing her like this. After marriage she wouldn’t be penniless, but did she know that? Had he even told her about the marriage settlement? An uneasy feeling washed through him. He hadn’t talked about this with her. She knew less about the money she would have than her step-mother did. But—he could tell her.

After a minute of thinking, he raised his head. “I must explain something important.”

“I am listening.”

Soames paused again and thought carefully. He had his facts; he knew his options. He knew what was before Parliament now and what would assuredly pass next year. Coverture would end, thank goodness, and women would truly be able to own property. What had allowed him to settle money on Fleur would allow him to give money to Irene. He had to explain this to her clearly. She did not know the law as he did.

“The facts are these,” he said, in the voice he used when talking to clients. “The trustees hold five thousand pounds for you in the marriage settlement. This gives you about a hundred and fifty pounds a year to do with as you please. The income is yours by law. I cannot touch it. I can increase your settlement over time, and I shall as my own fortune improves. The law both protects that money and presents us with a problem.”

“How so?”

Soames kept his voice calm and flat. This was a recitation of facts. “A marriage settlement is not what you request. You want money that is your own, and that means capital. I cannot give you that and have it remain yours. The law of coverture makes everything else you own mine when we marry.”

“I didn’t know—That’s barbaric.”

“It is.” This too was a statement of fact to him, remembering Fleur. “There is a bill before Parliament, however, which is likely to pass next year, ending coverture. You will be able to own property.”

“You will find a way to give me my own money when the law passes?”

“I will give you money now in anticipation of that event. Before the wedding, I shall open an account for you at the bank I use. You will have your own cheque-book. I will not ask what you do with it.” Soames pressed his lips together. “Your control of that depends on mutual trust, not on any guarantee of the law, so it is still not enough.”

Irene continued to watch him cautiously. And now he would describe the thing he had done so easily for Fleur, that required all his courage to do for Irene, but must be done.

“When the law changes, I will write a deed of gift to give you money that is yours, in your own name. No trustee will be able to take it from you. I will not be able to take it from you. I don’t yet know what my financial position will be when that happens, but when it does I will determine a reasonable amount and explain why I chose that by opening my books to you. There is no reason to leave it to a single gift. I can add to it later.”

Irene was breathing very hard, as if she’d been running. She was looking down at her gloved hands, her fingers twisting and untwisting around each other. “You would undertake to do this for me?”

“I will. You will always be able to leave me.”

His voice was still flat and calm, and so was his face, but Irene said, “It hurts you to promise that.”

Soames said nothing in response for a full minute, because she was right. Of course it hurt him. He was giving her the means to do what he’d sworn to do the first time, but failed to perform. He was doing what he ought to have done then. He’d been forsworn. She had to be free to leave him before it reached that point, before he had a chance to behave as badly as he had. He could only think about how badly it had hurt that day when she’d come back, only to leave again in the morning. She’d left with nothing and he’d never known how she’d managed to live. By the time he’d located her, she’d found her feet. How badly had it hurt her that day to leave with nothing? How badly had it hurt her today?

If she were free to leave, he must never make her wish to leave. He must not drive her to it. He had to watch himself always. Check his worst impulses. Stop himself from reacting in anger, think twice, breathe, think before speaking, think again before acting. The man he’d been then could never have done it. The man he was now could do it, perhaps, if he stood watch over himself. Stand solemn, upright, dignified, the watchman over himself.

“It does,” he said, eventually, when he was sure he had his voice fully under control. “More than I have words for. But if I fail, you must be safe. If I fail, you must not sit on a bench.”

“Thank you.”

Both of them were silent for a little. The night was hushed around them. Animal sounds, a rustling in the bushes, the hoot of an owl. Soames saw that she was trembling, with cold or with emotion he was not certain. His heart pained him.

Irene spoke. “I will try to explain to you why I asked for that.”

“Because when I am angry, I am—not to be trusted.”

“Soames, please. Don’t. We hurt each other this afternoon. I asked you to tell me your fondest wish and when you did I immediately told you no—of course you were hurt! And then you wouldn’t listen when I tried to tell you why your wish frightens me. And now I must tell you; this is what I must explain.”

He gripped the edge of the bench and kept silent despite his urge to ask questions.

She said, slowly, “It is difficult for me to speak of this, but I must or we risk marrying and finding our hearts broken on the first night. I am afraid, Soames, so afraid.”

“Of what?” he asked, gently. He could see her shaking.

“Do you remember when we heard the Beethoven Emperor Concerto together?”

This surprised him. “Yes.”

“I told you what it meant to me to listen to d’Albert play, to hear how much he loved the music, to hear a love so strong in him that it gathers me in—it possesses me, and I surrender. And when it’s over, I have given something, and I feel content.”

“I remember.”

“What if, what if—what if we are together, and I cannot feel that from our, from our connection? What if I cannot be possessed and surrender to what I hear and feel from you? What if I hear nothing? What if there is nothing? I have never heard anything but music that has moved me this way. How can I know if I can surrender to you? How can I know if I have never experienced these things or felt my body respond to a man at all?”

She broke off and turned away.

“Oh,” Soames said, softly. He remembered that first night so many decades ago, in his first life, how overwhelmed he’d been, how she’d cried. Had she done anything at all other than lie still underneath him? Had he done the least thing to consider her? He could not even remember. All he could remember was what had gone through him when he’d seen her, and how the next moment he’d seized her in his arms and was kissing her fiercely. She’d been afraid. Not cold. Afraid. He hadn’t even noticed.

He kept his voice as gentle as he could make it. “Is it that you are afraid, or that you don’t know?”

“I—I must tell you now—When my step-father held me, the only thing I felt was terror and revulsion. This whole month it has been all I can think about, his hands on my wrists and his breath when he forced kisses on me, his body—”

She broke off and sat with a hand over her mouth, breathing heavily. Soames leaned toward her; it was unbearable that he could not reach out to comfort her here and now.

He found his voice and asked as gently as he could, “Did he do worse than you told me?”

Irene spoke so very softly that he had to lean close to hear her. “No. But he said he would. He pinned me to the wall and told me it was coming. He told me I would enjoy it when it happened.”

Soames closed his eyes and reached deep for mastery of his own feelings at that moment. It would not help her if he became emotional. He had to care for her first. His hands were shaking, but he managed to keep himself silent.

Irene went on, “When you touch me and kiss me, it’s so sweet. I feel so warm. Before it happened, when we’d kiss, I felt so different. In the cab on the way home from supper with Gregory and George, I felt so safe kissing you like that. But then I think of him, when he threatened me, when he pushed me—”

“Irene,” Soames said, as if praying.

“What if all I feel with you is fear, no matter how kind you are? How can I think of children if I cannot get past that first thought, if I don’t know if I can even—I have been selfish with you just now, but I am so very afraid. What if I cannot let you possess me? I know that you are afraid of that word, but surely if it’s mutual—but it must be both of us. If I can’t, is it fair to you? If I lie there and endure it, is it fair to me?”

“No.”

“What are we to do?”

Soames closed his eyes, and begged Nemesis or God or whatever it was for forgiveness in this moment. He was a monster. He had done monstrous things. He deserved nothing.

He said, “Whatever it was he said, however it was that he threatened you, please know that it will be different with a man who loves you, a man who is giving to you and not taking.” A man who was not a monster; a man who loved her and behaved as if he did.

“How do you know? How do you know it will be better?”

Soames bit his lip. “I don’t know how to answer without speaking of intimate matters.”

“I think we must.”

Soames swallowed. This was not something he’d spoken of with anyone. Annette had been freer about this than anyone else in his life, but he hadn’t been able to speak to her about it, not even when they’d been in bed together. He had to find the words this time.

He began tentatively. “What do you know of the act of love?”

“What a woman ought, I think, but nothing that is truly meaningful, such as how to give pleasure or receive pleasure or what that pleasure is meant to feel like or how much it is to hurt the first time.”

“It is called the act of love because that is what it is. What matters is love. Paying attention to your lover and what she is feeling, giving pleasure to her the way she wishes it to be given, giving her what she needs. Love is why you needn’t fear me. Or so I pray.”

“I don’t need to know?”

“You will learn. You’ll feel it. It’ll be on your face and in your, your voice. And you’ll see it on my face. We’ll both be uncertain at first. Neither one of us will know what the other wishes for. What matters is loving each other enough to learn.”

“You’ll tell me how?”

“I will. And you will tell me.”

“But how—”

Soames looked at her. He remembered so many past conversations, so many bitter moments of begging her to try, to let him in even once. This was the first time she was meeting him half-way. She was asking him for help. Irene needed him. This was his moment. All those oaths sworn: now he must fulfil them. And he did love her, oh he did. More than ever before. He understood her now, at least a little bit, and what he’d come to understand moved him so much he was trembling.

He tried to speak, could not. He closed his eyes and breathed for a moment, then tried again.

“Let me love you,” he said. “Let me try to, to love you so much I reach out and gather you in to be part of me. Surrender to me once. Let me possess you for one night. If you can still bear my touch at the end of it—if you felt that response—then we will know.”

“What will we do if I felt nothing?”

“Then we will go without.”

“Would you be content?”

Soames closed his eyes and looked within himself. He would never touch her unwilling again. He would suffer, but he would not be without her. He said, “I want to embrace you. I want to so very desperately. I think you have seen how much—I cannot pretend otherwise. But I love you more than that. If you don’t want me, I won’t touch you. I’ll take only what you offer freely. I can’t—I won’t. You must want me too, or it’s no good.”

Irene clasped her hands in front of her face. “I think—I think we will find our way through. When you called on me in that hotel sitting room after I wrote to you, merely seeing you was enough to make everything better. Your hand on mine made me feel so reassured, so comforted. You were there. And you knew I was writing a note to you without a word spoken.”

He looked down at his gloved hands, thinking about that note in her palm, and how she’d slid it into his hand, how he’d fretted until he’d read it. “I’m glad.”

“Sharing as an act of love—that I can do for you. And if you can teach me to surrender to it—”

“I think I can.”

“If we can get past that—if I can accept your embrace—then children will follow.”

“Let me love you. Let me give to you, please. I want to so much.”

“I am so fond of you, Soames.”

And at those words Soames covered his face with his hands, because the moonlight was enough for anyone watching to see him. He felt her hand touch his shoulder. After a moment he pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his face. It was undignified to weep in public. He would do it when he was alone in his rooms. It was not a declaration that she returned his grand passion, but it was a declaration of love far beyond anything they’d shared before.

He returned his handkerchief to his coat pocket and spoke carefully. “Are you cold? I should like to offer you my overcoat.”

“I—I am.”

He took off his coat and wrapped it around her. She immediately clutched it tight at her throat and shivered.

He said, “I will be guided by your wishes in this, but I should prefer that you not sit here on this bench through the night. May I offer you my escort?”

Irene thought for a moment, then spoke equally carefully. “I would appreciate your company as I return to Park Lane.”

“I should be honoured. If we walk to the Kensington Road we might find a cab, even at this hour.”

“That would be good, I think.”

He stood and resumed his hat. Irene stood. He offered her his arm and she took it, slipping her right hand out of his coat sleeve while her left held it closed at her neck. They began walking south, along the strange dark paths through the trees. The shadows were longer and odder as the gibbous moon angled down towards setting. Soames led them out more directly to the main paths, avoiding the deeper shadows. The park was odd and eerie yet less frightening than it had been, because she was with him now, and he need not worry about her any longer.

They were under gas lamps now. Civilisation. He said, quietly, “If you choose to call on me at my office at any time during the week, I will take you to my bank and act on the first of my promises.”

“Thank you. I shall.”

So formal they were with each other yet. Soames felt it was safest to stay that way while he was touching her, so that she knew he was remaining on his best behaviour, as courteous and restrained and decorous as he could manage. He was a gentleman. He would remain that way.

They found a cab on the Kensington Road after a minute or two of walking east. Inside, Irene sat next to him and leaned her head on his shoulder. So much for decorum and distance! He put his arms around her and held her close and said absolutely nothing at all, rocking gently back and forth. He held her until they arrived at his parents’ home. He helped her from the cab, and could see from her movement that she was tired and still shivering with cold. He asked the cabbie to wait. She leaned on him as they walked up the steps. He rang the bell and opened the door with his latchkey. Almost before Irene could step inside, Warmson was there in his nightshirt, and Fifine in her nightgown. Irene crossed the threshold into his parents’ home, and turned to hand his coat back to him. Soames paused on the threshold, knowing he must not enter, and decorously tipped his hat to her. She touched her hand to her heart, then went inside, where Fifine immediately wrapped her in warm arms and drew her out of sight.

Soames returned to the cab to be driven to his rooms, though not to sleep. He needed to be alone. He needed to curl up with himself and his feelings and the fear she’d confessed to him tonight. He needed to brood over what knowing her fears was doing to him: how had he so misread her? He had to think about what she needed from him, and how badly he’d behaved.

Before he went to bed he posted a note to Parkes, who deserved to know, and came dangerously close to revealing an emotion in his expression of thanks. Friendship was a comforting thing. Love was anything but: madness and wonder by turns.

XXIX. Irene’s return

Soames went to the Poultry the next day and worked as if twenty demons were after him, hard enough and so obviously unhappily that Gradman shooed him in to stand in front of his father as if he were an errant clerk. Soames looked at his father: how old was he? Just seventy, seventy-one? The age Soames himself had been when he’d died with his hand in Fleur’s. And Fleur had been the age he was supposed to be now. It was an eerie thing to think: here he stood, the lovelorn fool, in front of his father, head down. How much was in the blood and how much was in the head? Everything burned hotter in him now, no matter what he had learned through his life.

His father’s face was sympathetic.

“I don’t know what it’s about and I don’t want to,” James said, and rubbed at his nose. “It would do you good to talk to Irene. Go home. There’s nothing here that won’t keep.”

“Thank you,” Soames said.

He left the office and headed to Park Lane by cab. When he reached his parents’ home, he hesitated. Warmson took his hat and coat, but Soames remained in the hall. What if she were not ready to talk to him yet?

He said, “Warmson, would you let Miss Heron know I have called to see her?”

Warmson came back in a moment to say that Miss Heron would see him, and was in the drawing room. If Warmson had any feelings at all about being awakened last night at such an hour, or questions about why, none of them appeared on his face, nor ever would. Soames nodded to him, grateful but of course unable to say it in any acceptable way. He mounted the steps.

Irene was standing by the tea-table to receive him. She was alone, so he left the door open. He stopped several feet away from her, uncertain about his welcome. She was wearing one of her older dresses, he saw, one that had been made over. The colours did look better on her than the new ones did. This was an inane thought to have while they stood looking at each other silently.

“Soames, this is the first time since April you have come to call on me and not given me that little smile you have when you are happy.”

“I am still ashamed of my behaviour yesterday.”

“If I did not say it last night, I will say it now. I accept your apology. I offer you my apology for not listening to your dearest dream in the spirit in which it was offered.”

“I accept your apology.”

In the next moment they were embracing, and then kissing, and Soames was embarrassed to find tears on his face. He pulled out his handkerchief and dried his face.

“I am going to have to change my collar,” he muttered. She smiled at him: she could smile again, it seemed, even though she was drying her own tears.

“Are you feeling well enough to go to my bank with me?” he asked. “I should like to fulfil the promise I can fulfil immediately.”

And so they went to his bank, opened an account in Irene’s name, deposited a notable sum of money into it for her own use, and acquired a cheque-book for her. If Irene was surprised by the number, she gave him no sign. Soames in fact exerted himself to be generous in this first gift, and on his part gave no sign that the number was meaningful to him.

Thus he made good the first of his promises to her.

---

Later that week, Irene stood for another fitting in Emily’s morning room, with Emily’s dressmaker. Emily had, it seemed, ordered things for her without being asked. This was both endearing and stifling. Soames had written to her about this trait of his family in one of his earliest letters, saying they cared but they suffocated.

Emily had ordered many pieces. This was the trousseau, she supposed, the full range of clothing for her newly married life, more clothing than she’d ever owned. It was both wonderful and horrifying, because she did like wearing good clothing, but not this clothing. It was not what she thought right, not what she thought she looked best in, or what she thought most beautiful to the eye. Or what Soames would want to look at, for she did admit that she had begun to consider what he might enjoy when thinking about colours and dress. Irene would not have ordered most of this if asked.

This day dress, for example, was quite lovely in shape and drape, but the fabric Madame was proposing was too dark, and the pattern was so busy. Perhaps the Pomegranate? or the Lichen? The Old Gold went well with her hair, she thought. Madame and Emily were both receptive to this discussion—they had, after all, said that they were open to experimenting with the next dress, since it was not the wedding dress. Emily reminded Madame of this, to Irene’s relief, and the three of them had a moment of amusement, and Irene was able to agree graciously that the wedding dress was indeed the one dress to be careful with.

Emily asked if these Liberty’s art colours were indeed fashionable and Irene assured her they were. She saw Emily’s eyes dart down to Madame and back up. She couldn’t see the dressmaker’s face. What did she think? Emily was—how old was she? Fifty? These were old women’s fashions, not young women’s.

The cut on the afternoon gown was also old-fashioned, she thought, though the fabric here was better and she could say it was better, though she stopped short of saying it was good. Could the cut be freshened a thought? Madame thought it could. Irene felt a moment of pleasure: she’d won her point on two of the dresses. On the morning dress it did not go in her favour, for both Emily and her dressmaker held firm on the practicality of the design and fabric for the daily tasks they assured her would be her duty. Irene would be spending her mornings practising, not discharging wifely duties, or whatever it was they thought was ahead of her.

This evening dress they were proposing to fit for her was mauve silk, and it was cut very high, and it would make her look at least a decade older than she was, positively ancient, and she simply could not imagine wearing it. It was one wrong dress too many.

“This won’t do,” she said. “The colour is wrong and the cut is wrong.”

There was silence in the room. Irene stared into the cheval glass, unaware of the other two women looking at each other.

“Very well, Irene,” said Emily.

They moved on to the next item.

---

Winifred was more than delighted to accompany Irene to Liberty’s to choose fabrics. Irene had apparently found a French dressmaker who had a little shop in Beak Street—in Soho! quite daring—and had commissioned some dresses. The woman had taken her measurements and specified how much fabric would be necessary, and Irene was now selecting the colours and purchasing it.

Winifred hadn’t spent much time at Liberty’s but had found it quite wonderful and exotic. The fabrics Irene had chosen enticed her, particularly the silk. She drew off a glove to feel it properly under her hand. The rose silk was cool and alive under her bare hand, finer than anything in her own wardrobe. It had a scent that was unlike that of any silk Winifred had run through her hands before. She wanted it, not for any dress she needed, only to have it to touch, because it was so lovely. She put the glove back on.

The assistants were fawning over Irene in a way that Winifred found most amusing. Irene seemed to think it was quite normal, however. This was what life was like when you were that beautiful, perhaps: you got used to the attention. Winifred found herself envying it. She’d never been treated that way by any shop assistants. Winifred wished she had been, even once.

But perhaps it was merely the money Irene had to spend, not her looks. She had a large allowance from Soames, it seemed. She bought many yards of fabric in three different silks and two different cottons, more fabric than Winifred expected. It was a shocking amount of money for the silks! But they were quite fashionable colours, very chic, and Irene had both an eye for them and a very decided opinion about which colours. Winifred envied this as well. Irene had a very clear idea of what she wanted, and could communicate it clearly. Winifred herself knew that she wanted to follow the fashion, but could not express what that fashion was in any comprehensible terms.

Irene made her purchases and had it all sent to her dressmaker. She said she had five different pieces commissioned from somebody she hadn’t had a single dress from yet, but Irene seemed quite certain about it. And all this at eighteen! It was most impressive. Winifred envied that as well.

But the true envy was, Winifred knew, somewhere else. Irene was buying her trousseau—the silk, the gloves, five gowns from a woman she trusted on sight—for a marriage to a man who watched her across a room as though she were the only thing in it worth seeing. Winifred had once had a trousseau of her own. She’d had a man watch her across a room, and had thought, at twenty-one, that having him watch her meant she was what mattered to him. She was fond of Irene. She found she hoped, with a longing that startled her, that Irene’s marriage would keep the promises all these dresses might make.

She knew her brother. She knew if it was in his power, the marriage would keep those promises.

Aloud, all she said was, “This is the French style, you say?”

“Yes. Everything is in the quality of the fabric, and the way it hangs and is folded. You don’t need any excess decoration on it.”

“Goodness. I am looking forward to seeing the dresses. You will be far ahead of the fashion in the family.”

Irene sighed. “The family is far behind, from my point of view.”

“Well, you certainly know what you want.”

---

In late September, the dresses began arriving, and Soames found himself in an awkward position about fashion, of all blessed things. Irene was beyond delighted. Her wardrobe for the honeymoon was complete, and she was, it seemed, selecting what she would take and what she would leave behind. Some of the dresses his mother had had made for her were being set aside, while the new dresses were in favour. These new dresses were quite different from anything Soames had seen on Winifred or his mother, and closest perhaps to what he’d seen Miss Béranger wearing, but with very different colouring. The fabric was folded and ruched and twined around itself, almost without external decoration. The quality of the silk was on display, as was the figure of the woman in the dress.

His mother was unhappy to see all of the dresses she’d had made for Irene cast aside, and had told him so, circumspectly and not in Irene’s hearing.

Irene wore one of her new dresses down to dinner. It was an evening dress in old gold silk, cut low, with fascinating twists in the fabric at the shoulders.

“It’s nothing I’ve seen anyone else wearing,” his mother said, looking at it. She cast a glance at Soames, to see if he had an opinion, and so did Irene, but Soames kept his face carefully neutral. He’d heard the story from both his mother and Irene, and he had thus far managed to say nothing at all to either of them that committed him. His mother was hurt. Irene was frustrated. He wished it were possible to have nothing to do with the matter. What did he care for frocks? Nothing. He wanted peace in his household.

The rumbling was perceived even by James, who was less aware of the finer points of its source, but equally miserable about its existence. After the ladies quit the dining room, Soames and his father sat drinking port together, a little glass apiece of ordinary port, and shared a look of complete mutual understanding.

“I don’t know what it’s all about,” James said. “Some business about the wrong dresses. Your mother’s unhappy.”

“I know,” said Soames.

“Irene’s unhappy about it too, poor little thing.”

“I know.”

“Can’t you fix it?”

Soames felt touched to know his father thought he had the skill to fix this, but he did not. He rather felt that anything he said would make it worse. The idea of taking sides was of course impossible.

“Father, I think we must let them work it out between them.”

James sighed. “You’ve been right all along about her, my boy, I must say. She does care for you, and it has been good for your mother to have her here. She’s cheered up by seeing so much of you at home again.”

“I know,” murmured Soames. He himself treasured this time as well. He knew, in ways deeper than his father could guess, what it was to sit at these dinners with his father and then without his father. He drank his perfectly ordinary port in a room with his father, and was deeply content. The future was loss, but it was yet to come.

James muttered into his glass. “I don’t know. I can’t tell. Nobody tells me anything about these aesthetic things, and then here we are fussing about them. All this worry and trouble about dresses.”

“It’ll pass, Pater. Much ado about nothing.”

James sat back and made a helpless gesture. “I thought she was sensible.”

“She is. She and Mother both.”

James gave his son a sharp glance. “You certain of that?”

“Yes. It’s a difference about fashion. It’ll pass.”

“You think her new gowns are pretty.”

Soames looked down into his port glass to hide his amusement. “I’m meant to.”

James almost smiled at him. “At least she’s no Dartie.”

“Thank goodness,” said Soames.

---

It was a Sunday at Timothy’s, the drawing room quite crowded, with the Nicholases, Old Jolyon, Swithin, the Jameses, Soames and Irene all there. Irene was in one of her new dresses, made from Liberty fabrics in the new aesthetic colours, freshly delivered from the hands of her French dressmaker.

Soames leaned against the mantelpiece, drinking his tea. He had a biscuit to nibble at with it. He didn’t particularly want to speak to anyone today, or listen to gossip. He did, however, want to enjoy simply looking at Irene, as always. If pressed, he’d admit he would enjoy having a bit of a chat about business with his uncle Nicholas. He lifted his teacup and drank. He caught his uncle’s eye, and Nicholas came over to him.

“There’s some hubbub about dresses going on,” Nicholas said. “Some argument raging over colours. I don’t know what it’s about but I’ve heard nothing else all week at home.”

“Fashion,” said Soames.

“Costs a pretty penny, is all I know about that.” Nicholas stirred his tea.

Across the drawing room, the women around the tea table were talking. Soames listened with some dread, keeping his face carefully blank.

“Well!” said Emily. “I do confess I was doubtful about those dresses and those Liberty art colours! So new, so unusual, too modern for me. But now that they’ve arrived and I’ve seen them on Irene in her fittings, not to mention this gorgeous dress today, I must say they have persuaded me. The colours are most becoming on her. The styles are what Winifred calls chic—too young for me, but delightful on Irene. As you can see!”

Soames raised an eyebrow. That was how his mother had decided to handle it, then. Elegantly done.

“Most becoming, Emily, yes,” said Hester, looking at Irene in her sage green walking dress.

Juley said, “Young people will want their liberty, it seems. Oh, and did I tell you what Francie said about the latest colour Euphemia wants? Said it was the worst of the new colours, something called ‘beetle’, most upsetting!”

“Beetle?” said Emily. “Oh dear me. What an odd name for a colour.”

“There it is,” Nicholas said to Soames, nudging him. “They were arguing about beetle all week. Now that your Miss Heron is wearing one of these new colours, Euphemia will be in beetle before the day is out.”

Across the room from them, Aunt Hester was saying, “I think she’ll look well in it. Though she is a bit thin.”

Juley said, “Not like our dear Irene here, who is anything but thin, and has a most wonderful figure. I am told that dear Monty admires it greatly.”

There was a moment of silence. Then Emily spoke, in as comfortable and soothing a voice as possible. “I do understand the dresses that Miss Béranger brings back from Paris a bit better now. Such interesting cuts they are, though the colours are more what I would expect!”

“It’s the draping that matters,” said Irene. “How the fabric hangs and folds. Lucie has a most excellent dressmaker, I think.”

“What is this I hear about George and some French girl?” Juley said, plunging from one precipice directly to the next. “A little bird told me he’s been visiting salons at a French diplomat’s home! And we all know how Roger feels about the French.”

“And we also know how dear George feels about marriage, Juley, goodness,” Emily said, in the smoothest manner she had. “There must be nothing to it. We do see quite a bit of George about, you know. He and Soames seem to have become great friends.”

Emily glanced over at Soames, as if seeking his help, but Soames had a mouthful of biscuit at that moment. Emily had been doing her best to keep the rumours quiet and Juley sniffing after the wrong scent, but Soames suspected it was no use. Sooner or later Young Roger would hear it, and then Roger himself would.

James rose to the occasion and said, “I heard the boy has gone into business speculating in house property, like his father.”

“He’ll end up in Queer Street if he’s not careful,” said Swithin. “He’s got his mind on horses, not work. The lad has a good palate, though.”

“Does he?” said Old Jolyon. “I had no idea he had anything at all in his head.”

“He had good things to say about my Heidsieck.”

“About time he settled down,” said Nicholas to Soames, who had remained silent through all this. “Roger had all but given up hope of him. Don’t suppose you know what he’s up to.”

“Uncle,” said Soames, giving him a sidelong look.

“Yes, yes, keep your mouth closed, you know your business. We’ll know it all soon enough.”

Soames cast up his eyes, for he would be surprised if they didn’t all know everything already. This family!

“Three daughters, all of them out. This is all going to cost me a fortune in new frocks,” said his uncle, and sighed.

---

Soames, his mother, and Irene were in the house in Pelham Crescent, moving in some personal effects and arranging some ornaments. It was nearly complete, only some furniture and the piano left to be delivered. All of Soames’s paintings had been moved to his study. He stood contemplating them, thinking about where to put each. Irene had yet to see most of them, and he was looking forward to showing them to her and consulting. He poked his head out of the door to listen for her, and heard her and his mother talking to the maids, who had moved in only that week. He would be showing them how to work the geyser in the bathroom later in the day.

He retreated back into his study and sorted out his two Corots and the Watteau. He would nominate these for the drawing room, if Irene approved. He leaned them against the wall by the door, to show her when next she came down. Then he remembered the programme in his pocket from the Crystal Palace, where they’d heard Eugen d’Albert again. He slid open the drawer in which he kept his most precious things—her letters, the engagement photograph they’d had taken, her pressed flowers—and found a package there, wrapped in plain paper. He dropped the programme with the others and took up the package. He shook it gently: a little odd rattling, some heft at the bottom, most definitely a box. He set it on his desk and considered it. Someone had given him a present. Well, at least they had done it where no one would notice him opening it.

He folded back the paper, then opened it all the way in some confusion. It was a colourman’s box, with the label Lechertier Barbe. Inside the box were dry watercolour cakes in a tinned tray, pencils, charcoals in a holder, rubbers for erasing, brushes of various sizes. Underneath the box was a sketchbook. Soames sat and stared at all this. It had to have been Irene—no one else would have thought to put something like this into his drawer, especially not that drawer—but why this? What was he to do with it?

He heard a rustle of skirts and smelled rose and honey, and knew she was watching him. He swivelled in his chair to look at her. She was smiling her mysterious smile at him, which was a very particular sort of smile, a smile he’d learned meant she was hiding what she was thinking, for some reason. She wanted to know what he was thinking, perhaps, without giving herself away.

Whatever it was, he was certain it had been her now. Had he ever been given anything at all by Irene before? No, not once in that prior life. He never knew what to do when given gifts, and especially not now, when the gift was from her.

“Irene,” he said, and gestured at the box on his desk.

“Yes?”

“You bought me—”

“Materials for painting. I know less about this than you do, but I think you should set the watercolours aside for the moment and use the pencils. No one will rap your knuckles here.”

She took his left hand and kissed his knuckles. He looked up at her, touched. He’d told her that draughtsmanship story, but the events were so very long ago. He still used his left hand for many things, but he hadn’t reached for a pen with it since he’d been a boy. He had given up.

“Irene, I haven’t the least idea how to draw anything.”

“You shall keep everything here in your study, and no one shall look except you, and you shall practise until you learn how.”

“I can’t learn at my age.”

“Nonsense. You’re twenty-five.”

“What if I can’t?”

“You will never know if you don’t pick up a pencil and try.”

Soames stared at her. He had no earthly idea what to do. Was there a book he could read? A tutor, as George had found for his French?

“Thank you,” he said at last. “Thank you. I shall try.”

He stood and kissed Irene’s hand, then clasped it between his. Left and right. He leaned close to her and kissed her lips.

---

Emily was in her morning room making notes on the dinner plans for the week when Irene knocked and entered.

“Yes, dear?” Emily said.

“Mama, I should like to ask a question.”

Now that was new, calling her ‘mama’. Emily studied Irene’s face. It was open, and the girl seemed to be doing it entirely without guile. She was not at all the sort to say something she did not feel wholly; Emily had certainly learned this. And seeing the warmth in her face was enough to melt Emily’s heart completely.

“Please do ask, my dear!” she said.

“I was thinking about jewellery,” Irene said. “For the wedding day, and the wedding dress specifically. I should like your advice. What would go best with it? I scarcely know, and I think you would.”

This was territory Emily felt quite comfortable in. “Oh! I should be quite glad to give advice on this. There are your hair, earrings, and a necklace to think about. Are you looking for new pieces?”

“I was hoping there was something already in the family to wear. Something traditional the family will recognise. If that’s appropriate?”

“It is most appropriate. Come up with me to my dressing table, dear, and we’ll look through what I have.” Emily took Irene’s arm and they climbed the stairs together to the big bedroom she had shared with James for nearly thirty years. Out of the corner of her eye she saw Irene looking around. Let her look, and see what a marriage could be, Emily thought.

Emily opened the casket with her jewellery and examined it thoughtfully. Most of what she saw would not do. The pearls, however, would. She took them out and laid them on the table.

“Soames has been giving you pieces that look quite different from the sort of things I wear, I think, but pearls avoid the whole question of gems and settings and so on. And they always look lovely with white dresses.”

“Oh, pearls, yes, of course!” said Irene.

“The question is, what have I got to put in your hair? I think I have something with some very tasteful diamonds you might like. And—keep this quite between us—we might mention where Soames can hear it that you are in want of pearl earrings. It gives him something to contribute without being asked. The dear boy always seems happiest when he has his part to arrange.”

“I’ve noticed this about him,” Irene said, and they shared a conspiratorial smile.

Emily embraced Irene quietly. She was a dear girl. Quite young and inexperienced, yes, and impetuous, but she had a good heart. And she was deeply fond of Soames and he of her, and that was what mattered most.

XXX. The perfection of the house

It was the end of September, and autumn had come to London. The house on Pelham Crescent had been decorated, and Soames had paid the decorator’s bill. All the painting and papering, all the furnishing, was complete. The alterations were long since accomplished by expert workmen hired with Parkes’s advice. The staff had been hired by Irene with Emily’s guidance, and had taken up residence in the house to learn its ways. Irene had, he thought, arranged for some items he did not recognise in their bedroom, but he took no notice very carefully.

Their house was ready to be a home, to be lived in, to be visited, and to be enjoyed. Or almost. It lacked but one item.

The very last thing to arrive was the Érard. This was delivered under Soames’s watchful eye. He would not have this botched: it was the most important piece of furniture they’d purchased, and certainly the most expensive. It was lifted on block and tackle, swung carefully over to the first floor windows, and manoeuvred within. Workmen assembled it once it was inside the drawing room, and then an odd little man with odd tools came in and tuned it. He spent what seemed like an inordinate amount of time about it, not that Soames grudged him the time.

Irene arrived partway through the work, along with Winifred and his mother. Irene came upstairs to watch the tuning, while Emily went down to the servants’ area to satisfy herself that all was well with the cook, whom she had engaged herself.

Soames and Irene watched the tuner work. It was quite fascinating, he thought, to see the intricacy of the mechanism that made such a sound. He was not a mechanical sort himself, but he filed away in his mind that pianos were not in fact all alike. There was a German make that was also quite fine, Irene said, but she preferred the two French makers.

The man stood, and slid the keyboard back into the piano.

“Mademoiselle,” he said, and then spoke to her in rapid French that Soames partly understood: he was complimenting her taste in something Soames could not catch but assumed was about the piano. Irene answered easily, and then the man invited her to sit on the bench with a gesture.

She assayed her usual runs and exercises, then some Chopin he recognised as often appearing at the start of her practices. It sounded different to him than it had when he usually heard it, and he suspected he was hearing why Irene had preferred this piano to the others. He had no idea what it was but she was doing something faster with her fingers and everything felt lighter and yet richer. Though—was something not right?

The tuner held up a hand and Irene stopped immediately and rose from the bench. The little man then pulled out a section of keys and adjusted something in the action with some tools. Irene was giving him every courtesy, Soames noted, not treating the fellow like a workman at all. He was not dressed like one, he supposed.

Irene sat and this time played the Fauré he found so baffling.

“Elle est plus douée qu’elle ne le craint,” the tuner whispered into his ear. He smelled like oil and gardenias.

Soames nodded. “Vrai.”

Irene broke off and looked at the tuner. She said something with a smile, and he asked her a question. Irene expressed satisfaction. The tuner began packing his tools.

Irene then began playing something that Soames immediately recognised: what she had been playing when he’d first seen her. A love song, she’d said, by Schumann for Clara, arranged by Liszt. Even he had known the name Liszt then. This piece! He stood frozen in place, transported back to that moment, that drawing room, the first sight of her face.

The tuner and the workmen left the room, and Soames did not notice.

Irene continued playing until the piece had reached its quiet conclusion. The room was still. Somewhere on the roof, the workmen shouted to each other. Somewhere downstairs, Emily and Winifred spoke.

Soames raised his hand to his throat. Had she played that for him, remembering? Or was he being absurd? Then he saw her looking at him, and he held her gaze. She’d remembered; it had been for him.

When he could move again, Soames went to Irene where she still sat at the keyboard, and stood close. He could not speak for some little time. Irene was silent as well, watching him, it seemed.

Eventually he said, “Is it to your satisfaction?”

“It is. Thank you.”

“It sounds so different.”

“It is so much easier to play. I need not be so heavy-handed with it.”

“I hadn’t realised you were heavy-handed before.”

“It was quite difficult not to be. But with this instrument, I can put my attention elsewhere, on the phrasing and other aspects of expression. You could hear it?”

“I could. Truly. I remember what it sounded like the first time you played this in my hearing.”

“You remember a great deal, Soames.”

“When I pay attention, yes. It has always been a skill, a useful one. And with you, I have paid attention since that first moment.”

“When you fell in love.”

“When I fell in love.”

They held each other’s gaze for a long sweet moment, not touching. Then Soames offered his hand to Irene. She took it, and he led her up to the second storey where their bedroom was, ready for them to come in after the honeymoon. He led her first into his dressing room, where all the things a man might need were: a washbasin and mirror for shaving, a chest of drawers, a clotheshorse, bootracks, and so on. A little bed stood tucked into a corner.

“If you wish not to share your bed,” he said.

He next led her into the bedroom, where the brass bedstead stood with its head against the wall. “If you wish to share it.”

The bedroom had warmer Morris papers than the drawing room did, deeper creams and reds, so it felt more cosy and enclosing. There was an armchair by the fire where she might sit if she wished of an evening. Irene’s dressing-table was here, though not yet her jewellery or brushes or other things. The room did not yet feel hers, without that scent of rose and honey in the air, however faint. It would be hers, and hers alone, and he would show her why.

He turned to the door that connected his dressing room and the bedroom, and showed her a bolt, freshly installed on the inside of the door. “There’s another on the door to the hall,” he said.

“Soames—”

“It’s safer than a lock with a key, because I might have a copy of any key. This way you can be certain you will be alone.”

He held her gaze while she studied him. He put his hands behind his back so he could steady them.

Having bolts installed in place of the keyed locks was one of the hardest things he’d done. It was something he had to do, he knew, after that conversation by the Round Pond. She had to know she could be safe from him. He knew he might deserve being locked out, so he had given her the means.

It was so painful to remember what she had done in that previous life, and hold in his heart the awareness that that first life’s Irene had only acted as she ought in the face of a man without consideration. He was a watchman indeed, a watchman protecting her against his own worst self. If only he were a better man, if only he deserved more. He would earn the right to sleep beside her if he could, and hold onto it. You are a brute and a bastard, Parkes had said, as if it were the easiest thing in the world to be otherwise. Perhaps it was the easiest thing for Parkes. Parkes was surrounded by women he could choose among. Parkes wasn’t an awkward silent man burdened by a grand passion he hadn’t the least idea how to express. Parkes wasn’t a selfish grasping beast.

Irene came closer to him and laid a hand on his arm.

“Thank you,” she said. “This was thoughtful. I believe we shall not need it.”

“No?”

She looked down at the square of carpet they stood upon. “I did not mean to say I don’t want you. I meant I am frightened. Of the act, not of you.”

“I am afraid of myself.”

“I know. But I trust you, Soames.” She looked up at him, and he saw that she was trembling.

“Irene,” he said.

“I am unsure and frightened and I don’t know what to expect or what I am going to feel. I don’t—”

Irene reached up to him, and he gathered her into his arms. “I will keep you safe,” he said, very quietly.

“Thank you,” she said, unsteadily.

He held her close for a long moment, and whispered to her. “I will ask permission before every touch, every kiss. I will do everything I know how to do to give you pleasure, as slowly and carefully as you need me to be. I’ll give you all I have. I do love you so, Irene.”

“Thank you again,” she said, so softly, into his shoulder. He kissed her forehead, then stepped back to brush a kiss over her lips.

“It will be an honour,” he said. He meant it. He eased back to hold her hands. She was steadier now, and when he smiled, she returned it. “Shall we go back downstairs now?”

Soames laced his fingers with hers and led her down two flights of steps carefully. Together they walked to the stairs down into the kitchen. Irene descended to join his mother and Winifred in deep discussion with the cook. Soames stayed upstairs, out of the women’s territory of the kitchen, and listened to the conversation with some satisfaction. His mother was most pleased with the woman she had engaged, and with the parlour maid they had found together. Irene had engaged the chamber maid on her own with Emily watching and expressing her pleasure in the readiness with which her pupil had learned to judge character. It had all gone as well as any of them had hoped. Irene was ready to be done with Emily’s supervision, but was also sensitive enough to know how much joy Emily was taking in helping her daughter-in-law-to-be set up a household for her son, and thus the peace was kept.

He wandered away from them and back into his study. Here he would work in the evenings when he needed to. It was a pleasant room, with light from the garden behind. The Alfred Stevens he’d snatched up was hanging here so that he could look at it and think about it, the privilege of the newest addition to the collection. Irene and he had walked around the house together choosing locations for the rest of his paintings. The Morland was in the dining room. Irene still did not care for it, but this was unimportant. His two Corots and the Watteau were all in the drawing room. The Turner was also in his study, for the moment; they were still discussing the best place for it.

His study already felt like a welcoming place. He’d spent so much time in his attic room in Montpellier Square, hiding from the awareness that she did not want him near her. If he tried to sit in her drawing room, she’d stop whatever she was doing and sit patiently, doing nothing, until he left. He’d been so baffled and angry about it, so frustrated. Now—now in her drawing room there were a pair of chairs next to each other by the fire for them to sit in, near enough that they could touch each other while they sat.

Soames sat in the chair at his new desk, so much more pleasant than the merely usable writing-desk he had still in his chambers. The only thing he wanted to keep from his chambers was already here in his study: the cane chair, which he did love, arranged by the garden window. His first clumsy sketches of fruit arranged on a plate—which he would surely never show anyone—had joined the drawing materials Irene had given him, hidden in the drawer with his keepsakes of her.

There were voices in the hall, moving away and then muffled. They were in the dining room, he thought, discussing the furniture, or the wallpapers, or the colours. Something. His mother sounded rather puzzled by it all. Winifred thought it chic and modern, which it was. It was what Irene wanted, somewhat influenced by what his own eye had preferred when she’d asked. He’d enjoyed being asked.

Soames had suggested distempers in creams and sage greens in certain spaces, to give good backgrounds for any paintings that might be displayed there. In others, Irene had chosen wallpapers that Soames found lovely to the eye: flower designs in golds and more of those sage greens. The drawing room felt so light and airy to him, as if it had room to breathe. The dining room was the same. In the bedroom she’d chosen warmer colours, so it felt cosy to be in, as if they were safe inside a warm nest. Even his dressing room was warm and welcoming.

It was their home in a way Montpellier Square had not been. The Irene of his past life had helped him decorate, but she hadn’t been enthusiastic the way she’d been this time. It hadn’t cost him anything to share it; it had been a joy. They’d wanted the same things the first time round, but the end effects hadn’t been the same; the house hadn’t felt so flowing and harmonious. For one thing, his paintings hadn’t been shared. He’d hoarded them in his attic room like a miser, lest he risk finding out she despised his taste. Now he knew she did not.

He did like arranging things for people, he knew. He’d found deep satisfaction in being asked to decorate Green Street for Winifred, and arrange her wedding breakfast. He’d liked straightening out George’s finances for him—it was the only way he knew of telling George he thought highly of him. But here it would have been the wrong thing. Letting Irene display her taste had been the better thing.

The voices of the women in his life were outside in the hall again, and advancing to the door of his study. Soames arose from his chair to greet them politely.

“The sanctum sanctorum,” said Irene. Soames looked down and smiled.

“Your study is just as modern as everything else,” Emily said. “But Soames, dear, must you be so far away? Your father is most concerned.”

“It’s not that far, Mother.”

“I suppose not. Your father will fuss about the horses, though.”

Winifred laughed. “Goodness, Mama, what does he keep them for, if not to drive him across the Park?”

“One does wonder, the way he carries on sometimes. Well, it is all quite lovely and ready for you both after the honeymoon.” Emily clasped her hands and sighed.

“Come see the drawing room, and we’ll have tea,” Irene said. “We’re expecting other guests soon.”

She was playing hostess for the first time, and Soames could see the satisfaction on her face. She linked arms with Winifred, and the two went out and up the stairs to the first floor, trailed by Emily.

The doorbell rang. Soames peeked out of his study to watch the parlour maid in action answering it. It was Parkes and George, arriving together. They were expected, she told them. Coats and hats hung, and then they were escorted upstairs. Soames heard their names announced, then a burst of conversation. He wasn’t sure if Irene had invited anyone else, but he did want to go up and shake hands with the two of them.

He mounted the stairs two at a time. Youth! He was enjoying it. He entered the drawing room and was delighted to greet his friends and practise touching a hand to Parkes’s shoulder. He was quite bad at it still, never sure if he was doing it at the right time or with the right pressure or if he were merely as awkward as he’d always been, but Parkes never seemed to mind. His cousin George still teased him, but he now understood it to be George’s way. When George disliked someone, the mockery felt entirely different.

Parkes! Made of charm. There he was buttering Winifred, who was perfectly happy to be buttered. Lock up your wives! Parkes would flirt with them all, and then wander off to flirt with another group of women without hesitation. Soames sat to tea with them and accepted a cup from Irene with relish.

George joined them, was poured tea, and then Irene whispered to him as she handed him the cup. George immediately looked absurdly pleased, and checked his pocket-watch.

“Elle est en retard,” he said.

“Elle arrive quand elle le souhaite,” Irene replied. “Votre accent s’améliore.”

“Thank you. It is won with great pain. So much vocabulary to memorise! So much time speaking with my tutor and being called terrible names. At least I assume they’re terrible names. He refuses to translate them for me.”

“Dear George, it is quite marvellous to see you happy like this.” Emily was fond of George, and further had a new zeal to see everyone else’s sons married off happily now that her own was on his way to marital bliss. Or so Soames assumed, given that she’d been doing the same with Parkes.

“Aunt, I have no idea to what you might be referring. I am learning French for my health.”

“Of course, dear, of course.”

Soames heard voices in the downstairs hall through the open door, and shortly the maid Larkin entered the drawing room to announce Miss Rosalyn Whitford and Mademoiselle Lucie Béranger. The men rose to greet the new visitors. Lucie, he noted, was carrying her violin case. Soames raised an eyebrow at Irene, who gave him her most mysterious smile. She had made this an occasion, it seemed.

Irene introduced Miss Whitford to Winifred, who had not met her yet, and then poured even more tea. George and Lucie were exchanging shy looks across the tea-table. George now seemed tongue-tied. Soames smiled behind his teacup to see it. He remembered feeling like that.

The wedding party was assembled, he realised: his groomsmen and her bridesmaids. That had to have been intentional on her part.

The doorbell rang again, and this time Larkin announced Mr James Forsyte. James was unexpected, but none of them minded, and especially not Soames.

James entered, looking unusually angular in his frock-coat, and looked about himself in surprise to see so many people. “I came here to see for myself,” he said. “Didn’t realise there’d be all this crowd. How do you do, Miss Whitford, Miss Béranger.”

Soames rose and went to his father and touched his arm. He drew him in to sit next to Irene where Soames himself had been sitting, and then silently stepped back to the fireplace, where he could watch everyone without being noticed. The room was lit by late-afternoon light from windows with curtains open, that crisp early autumn sunlight from a clear sky that promised a starlit night. The drawing room was lovely; the Corots looked marvellous over the piano; and the whole room looked airy and bright.

Irene poured for James, who took his teacup and said, “Well, this all looks cosy. It’ll be hard on the horses, having to come all this way so often.”

“Papa, surely you can take the train,” Irene said. “We’re quite near the station.”

James looked at her, and his face went soft and he looked as though he were very close to a smile. “I suppose there’s something to that.”

Soames drank his own tea while leaning against the mantel with a sense of satisfaction that was difficult to express. So much tea drunk through a lifetime; the ritual repeated like a clock ringing the hour, but this was the first time he’d been handed a cup of tea in his own home by Irene, with affection. Who could have foreseen this? Irene calling his father “papa” and his father looking as if he were almost happy? He looked at them all, talking so cheerfully, in his own home, where he would be living with her so very soon now.

He caught Irene’s eye, and smiled.

“I should like to tell you all,” Irene said, “that our piano was delivered today, and tuned, and it is ready to be played. I think we should mark this occasion by playing it. Shall we?”

Irene, Miss Whitford, and Lucie went to the piano and began discussing what to play. They were clearly amiably disagreeing about which should have the honour. Finally Irene yielded and sat on the bench. She and Lucie selected a piece, then there were some moments of tuning and discussing timing.

Then Miss Whitford announced, “This is Fauré’s sonata for piano and violin.”

Oh dear, Fauré again. Lucie and Irene began to play a piece he hadn’t heard before, with many passages of violin and piano trading back and forth as if speaking to each other. They both seemed to know the piece, enough to be putting feeling into it, but not well enough to do without Miss Whitford turning pages for them.

Watching a duet played before him was different to watching Irene play alone. Irene and Lucie had eyes for each other as much as for the music and their instruments. They were playing together, making music together. He’d learned through Irene to take pleasure in the sight of musicians working together making a thing that he could only receive.

George ranged up next to him, grinning. “Here we are again, cousin,” he said, sotto voce.

“So we are. I think they both have a good seat.”

“They do. By the way, is Parkes reliable?”

Soames looked at George carefully. “I do business with him.”

“That is all I needed, thank you.”

George abandoned him to rest his hands on the piano, where he could gaze like a moon-struck calf at Lucie while she played. Soames smiled to himself. He understood George completely.

Soames moved quietly along the length of the drawing room to a window where he could both listen to the baffling Fauré and look out upon the street below. The setting sun’s warm light glowed on the houses at the end of the crescent. Was the house perfect? The question was the wrong one. On the other side of the drawing room, he heard Winifred laugh at something Parkes had said, and his mother make some kind of retort. The piano in this room was perfect, and so was the woman playing it. His friends were in this room, and that made it pleasant. His parents were in this room, and therefore it was blessed.

XXXI. Soames among men

On the second Saturday of October, in the evening, Soames shaved, dressed in evening clothes, and got into a cab for Kettner’s in Soho. He was on his way to his bachelor dinner. George was hosting, at his own insistence. Soames had pressed him on the shoulder—the way Parkes did, he hoped—in thanks when he’d learned this. George had been more than happy to arrange the menu and the guests, after a brief consultation with Parkes for his opinion. His palate was of course contributing to the Hotch Potch’s reputation of late, young as he was, and no sensible man would object to his hosting.

The guest list was small, but Soames was happy that it was. He could not have borne a large dinner party. He preferred to talk with a few people he knew well. George, Parkes, Dartie—required lest he slight Winifred, which he would never do—his uncle Nicholas’s third son Archibald, and his uncle Jolyon, who’d spent more time with Irene than any of the aunts and uncles over the summer thanks to those operas at Covent Garden.

Parkes and Soames arrived at Kettner’s at the same time, and found George already in their private room, talking to the sommelier.

Arriving after them was his cousin Archibald. Archibald was a good sort who ought to make something of himself, but needed encouragement. He had left university without any sort of direction, and in consequence was having a flirtation with the idea of joining the Militia. Nicholas wished this to be sweated out of him before it turned into a real affair. He’d asked Soames to lend a hand, and in thanks for Nicholas’s early patronage, Soames had done so without hesitation.

Old Jolyon and Dartie arrived at almost the same time.

Here they sat at his bachelor dinner, talking over the end of his life as a single man. He wasn’t the sort to get drunk on a night like this, and they knew it. Even Dartie was behaving himself, and not drinking all that much more wine than the rest of them.

The dinner opened with huîtres, Colchester natives with brown bread, butter, and lemon. The chablis with them was ice-cold. Conversation was not yet flowing smoothly. Parkes wasn’t known to any of them save George, and Archibald was not the sort of man to make easy conversation with men he did not know.

At the conclusion of this course, Soames gave both Parkes and George the traditional white kid gloves in silver paper, along with silver peacock cuff-links that he’d commissioned. He remembered a night he’d spent wandering the empty streets of London during his first life, when he’d made a terrible mess of it, and how much listening to the peacocks crying over the water had meant to him: an almost human scream that had been the sound he could not make himself. Peacocks, therefore, with colourful tails worked in enamel, in the modern aesthetic style. He’d had a pair made for himself as well. He’d found the perfect craftsman through Liberty’s.

They were moved, and there it was. Soames sincerely hoped they never said a word about it again.

On to the potages, two of them, a clear consommé first and then bisque d’écrevisses, accompanied to Soames’s mild surprise by a madeira. Soames had no complaints. Madeira was something he associated with his father in his most nostalgic moments, and therefore enjoyed.

“Madeira?” Old Jolyon said, to George. He tasted it suspiciously, but his face cleared immediately. “Now this is a fine vintage. You do have taste, young man.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” George said, and he shot his cuffs, looking quite pleased with himself.

Old Jolyon’s compliment broke the ice, and conversation got a tentative start.

“Your father was saying something to me about the Militia,” Soames said to Archibald.

Archibald sat forward and brightened. “I’ve been thinking of enlisting.”

“Whatever for?” said Dartie.

“I need something to do.”

“Can’t blame a man for wanting something to do,” said Parkes. “But why that thing in particular?”

“The uniform,” said Archibald. “The drill. The rifles.”

“But why not the Yeomanry?” asked Parkes. “They’re much more dashing.”

“Can’t ride.”

The expression on Parkes’s face was briefly something between astonishment and horror, but quickly masked.

“Why not the regular Army, then?” Soames asked, calmly.

“Father says if I can’t get through Sandhurst, there’s no point.”

Parkes, face safely under control, asked, “But what did you read at university? Surely that gives you something interesting to think about.”

“Classics,” said Archibald.

Parkes shot a look at Soames, who offered him a shrug. He couldn’t remember what Archibald had ended up doing with himself; the man hadn’t stuck in his memory, more’s the pity.

The fish came round, turbot in sauce homard, along with a Steinberger hock that was delicious. Soames tasted both and let himself enjoy them. Delights of the body! He’d lived an abstemious life; not a great deal of food, drink, or women at any time. He’d kept himself under tight control, for when it slipped, what he’d done had been unforgivable. He was safe enough tonight, here with his friends, however.

The conversation among the men started to ease a little, and become more free-flowing and far-ranging. Parkes had a way of getting people talking about themselves, and he was at last able to draw out Archibald and get him talking about books instead of military matters. Here Archibald seemed far more sensible, and to have more interesting things to say. He seemed, in fact, to have an interest in what made for good stories that reminded Soames somewhat distantly of something related to magazine-editing. Had the fellow ended up a publisher? Soames was embarrassed not to remember. He supposed he’d have to do it properly by learning what the lad was good at.

Champagne came along with the next course, the entrées. These were ris de veau à la financière and suprêmes de volaille aux truffes. The champagne was a dry Pommery—very modern of George. Soames had grown weary of the sweet champagnes that the past apparently loved, and it was refreshing to taste a more dry wine.

The sweetbreads were delicious. He hadn’t had this dish in some time.

Soames drank champagne, ate a bite of truffle, and thought about food and wine and how he rarely let himself enjoy them. When he was upset, food was the first thing he gave up, because it felt impossible. Now, though, he was happy, and he could luxuriate in it. For example, this Pommery was absurdly good and it set off the truffles in such a subtly pleasant way. He found himself curious about the sensations of eating in a way beyond simple comfort or physical need. He’d had good food at Mapledurham, but it had been almost mechanically perfect. Why was this better? Perhaps because of the men at the table with him. Could things be as simple as that? Friendship and warmth made things better?

Soames paid attention to the conversation around him again. Dartie was apparently quizzing Parkes. “How do you know Soames?” he asked.

“We were the same year at school. We’ve been fast friends and business partners since.”

“Ah, Marlborough. Some roughs there, I hear,” said George.

Parkes said, “Forsyte had rather a reputation at school.”

“For violence?” asked Dartie.

“For brilliance and for not suffering fools,” said Parkes. “He was only violent when he needed to be.”

Dartie seemed impressed by this. It was, of course, pure exaggeration, since he’d only been violent twice, no, three times, and only caught once. But Soames was willing to let Parkes get away with it. Perhaps Dartie would think twice about treating Winifred badly if he thought Soames would be ready to black his eye over it. Why hadn’t he, come to think of it? He ought to have. He’d been angry about all the wrong things.

Soames had another mouthful of sweetbread and considered this.

The sweetbreads and truffles were removed in due course; filet de bœuf was brought round. More champagne was poured, and the table became quite cheerful.

Uncle Jolyon asked how Soames had come to ask George to be a groomsman. “I thought you two didn’t get on,” he said.

Archibald chimed in. “I thought George rather despised you, Cousin Soames. Do tell.”

George cast a withering glance at Archibald, drank some champagne, then said, “They do have a point. Why me, Soames, of all people? And no temporising this time.”

Soames sighed. He might as well come out with it. “Because of something that happened when we were children. Your older brother Roger had been terrible to Winifred, and she was crying. I was working myself up to fight him, and I didn’t want to because of how much bigger he was. You told him off, then went over to Winifred and made her laugh. I’ve never forgotten it.”

George looked sidelong at him, with a little smile on his face that was oddly warm. “Well, that’s a terrible burden to bear the rest of my life,” he said. “I allowed your moment of cowardice.”

Soames said, “And of course because you’d hate every moment of it. You’re forced to behave yourself. Well, at least until you start drinking at the wedding breakfast.”

“Damn your eyes, Cousin Soames, my vengeance shall be vicious and memorable, and all the more vicious because I am forced to wait until you are back from your honeymoon. And because I am deathly afraid of upsetting Cousin Irene. One glare from her and a thousand ships will launch. But never you fear, I will build a wooden horse and trick you into letting me in past your guard one night and hey presto! I’ll have a knife in your ribs.”

“The Greeks built the horse,” Archibald said. “You’ve got your sides mixed.”

“I know exactly what I said, you hapless ink-stained wretch.” But George saluted Soames with his glass, and Soames knew George had understood him. Winifred was someone Soames would move mountains for, very quietly. Dartie really ought to be on guard.

There was an interlude in the meal at this point for punch à la Romaine. Soames looked at his glass and calculated exactly how badly his head would hurt in the morning, and how little he would regret it given the quality of the food thus far. Rum and champagne and meringue: simply delicious, and a drink vanished from meals by the War. A loss, in his opinion.

Archibald stood up with a full glass of the punch and said, “Gentlemen, I should like to toast the bridegroom, the man who manages the affairs of all the Forsyte cousins with such quiet skill and efficiency. To Cousin Soames!”

The other men stood and toasted him. Soames flushed, and was relieved he need not answer this toast. He need merely drink with them and relax. He appreciated it nonetheless.

After the pause of the punch came the highlight of the meal: partridge, for it was the season for game. That was almost expected. The thing that Soames did not expect was the wine. The wine poured with it was the 1865 Château Lafite, bottled and corked when Soames was a boy, a notable year, and not just any notable year. It was one of the last excellent years before the vineyards of France and Portugal had been destroyed by the pest, and their vines regrown with American rootstock. Wine hadn’t tasted the same since.

Soames was startled by the reminder of what truly great claret had once tasted like, and he sat with his glass savouring it for some minutes. Soames hadn’t George’s or Old Jolyon’s palate, but even he had been able to taste the difference. This was—it was a thing that he could taste only here and now, in his own past.

Parkes said to him, “Eat, Forsyte. It’s uncommonly good.”

Soames looked aside at the partridge and blinked. “Quite,” he said. “The claret, George, the claret is astonishing.” He would not taste its like again, and he was grateful to have done it tonight.

Their uncle spoke up, “It is, George, it is indeed. Again, young man, you surprise me.”

George was now almost preening.

The entremets was a hot soufflé with Château d’Yquem. Soames had a difficult relationship with sweet wines and sweets in general, but he had entered into the spirit of the thing, and was eating and drinking a little of everything with pleasure. This was a meal to remember, perhaps one of the best meals of either life. The table had begun to slow and relax under the warm blanket of good food and good drink, and the self-satisfied look of their host.

After the sweet came the savoury, mushrooms on toast, a little bite of something that tasted different from what came before. Soames was lost in thought again, still emotional from wine, thinking about Irene now, about the challenge before him. Did he know how to get it right, whatever it was? Did he know how to do right by her? To make her happy, to treat her tenderly and with love, to give her what she needed? He’d thought he had known, that first time, but he’d been a young arrogant fool. How could he know this time? How could he stay humble?

How could he be a good husband? Was asking her what she needed from him enough?

“Soames?” said his uncle.

“What?” Soames looked up from his plate to find the table looking at him.

“Where are you, boy?”

“Sorry. I was thinking about, about getting things right. Getting marriage right. Being a good husband.”

“It’s not hard,” said Dartie. He lifted his wineglass and gestured with it. “You tell her sweet things, and kiss her, and take her to bed as often as possible.”

Soames went very still. He stared at Dartie, and his face was cold. Parkes took his arm casually but held on; Soames let him.

George put a hand on Dartie’s shoulder and pushed him back into his seat. “Come, old man, he doesn’t want to think about that,” he said. “You’re married to his sister!”

“What? Oh, yes, suppose you have a point there. Sorry, old boy, no offence meant.”

“None taken,” said Soames, because Parkes was squeezing his arm.

“Marriage is a great deal more than that anyway,” Old Jolyon said, grumpily. Soames could see in his face that he thought no more highly of Dartie than Soames did.

The port circulated, and every man poured his glass full to the trembling brim. George took his glass and stood. “The Queen!” he said.

All stood. “The Queen!” And they drank to her. Soames found this toast nostalgic yet satisfying: he had not drunk it since returning to life in his past. The age of the great Queen Victoria was yet with them. She had a good twenty years left, and they would be prosperous ones. To the Queen, indeed.

Cigars went round. Only Soames and George abstained, and Dartie shook his head to see George steering clear of tobacco. “Don’t know what’s come over you,” he said. “No cigars, no bettin’, only the billiards now and then.”

“That’s because you’re blind as a bat,” George said. He lounged in his seat, watch-chain glittering across his slim waist. George had a very good tailor indeed, Soames thought, looking at that perfect waistcoat.

“That’s a fine thing to hear from me own best man.” Dartie pouted then broke into his easy smile, and punched at George’s shoulder.

“Gentlemen,” said Old Jolyon. The port went round again, and they charged their glasses. Soames’s palms started to feel damp, for he knew what was about to come.

His uncle stood. “Gentlemen, I give you young Soames, a man who deserves the happiness he is about to enjoy. To the bridegroom’s health!”

They all stood around him and drank to him, while Soames’s face flamed red. He hated being the centre of attention so very much, but it couldn’t be helped. They all sat again, and Soames sighed and rose to his feet.

He’d known he would have to do this, and he had prepared for it, with a little help from Irene on his French. He considered them: George, clean-shaven, curl of dark hair over his forehead like a schoolboy’s, leaning back in his chair, smiling with half his mouth, but somehow sweet-tempered. Parkes with his handsome face and lion’s mane of hair, leaning over to George and whispering something that made George’s eyes crinkle with a full smile. Dartie, glossy and self-satisfied under his moustaches, slouching with his cigar. The tall pale Archibald with waxed curled moustachios, who looked as if militia drill would break him in half, sitting with port glass in hand. His uncle Jolyon, also sitting at ease with a cigar, satisfied, but entirely different about it, as if he had decided that what he saw around him was acceptable.

Soames passed his hand over his own face, giving himself a moment to find his poise. He cleared his throat and said, “I am the luckiest of men. I don’t deserve any of you, but somehow you are here with me. Uncle Jolyon, you have done me the kindness of joining us when you need not have done so—your blessing means more to me than I can express, sir.

“Archibald, your father has been a staunch ally, and I shall be that to you. My hand is yours.

“Dartie, so long as you keep my sister as happy as she is today, my hand is yours as well.” Old Jolyon and George both made soft sounds at this, but Dartie seemed pleased.

Soames turned to George. “George, l’amour nous capture tous, mais cette captivité est douce. Je suis heureux pour vous.” George put his hand on his chest and bowed to him in acknowledgement.

“Parkes—Parkes, I—I have not the words.” He trailed off. He’d written something for Parkes, but he couldn’t say it. His throat had closed up. He held Parkes’s gaze for a long moment.

George sat up and said, “Cousin Soames! I have been wanting to know. How did you meet the fair Irene? And when were you first aware that she was the woman you would wish to marry?”

Soames sat down in some relief. This was a rope thrown to a drowning man; his duty was to seize it. “I am her step-mother’s trustee, and she had me down to discuss re-arranging her investments to improve her income. Irene happened to be home from the Conservatoire for a week, and I walked in on her playing the piano. Later I came to understand that her step-mother had arranged it so I would meet her, but I didn’t have it in me to be annoyed.”

“Clever woman,” said Old Jolyon. “What was Irene playing?”

“A love song by Robert Schumann for Clara, called Widmung, in an arrangement by Liszt.”

“Oh,” murmured Old Jolyon.

“I was in love before she’d finished it, though not as much as I’d be by the time we’d finished talking.”

Old Jolyon said, “That’s a piece to fall in love to if ever there was one.”

George said, “Love at first sight. It exists, then.”

Soames said, “Seemingly.”

George said, “You’re a cautious devil. I think we’d better admit it exists.”

Parkes said, “You two victims say so, at least.” Old Jolyon gave George a canny look.

“Gentlemen, charge your glasses,” said Dartie, and the port went round again.

Dartie stood, with all his dark good looks and white teeth and easy manner, glass in hand. “Gentlemen, I give you the most beautiful woman in London, capable of making a man fall in love at first sight. To the bride!”

They all stood, and Soames drank to his bride quite happily. She was indeed the most beautiful woman in London.

There was only one toast left to give, and this one was his. It was odd that his nerves didn’t tweak him here. He was about to sing the praises of another man, and that did not bother him at all.

“Gentlemen,” Soames said. “Your glasses, please.” The port went round to the left one final time.

Soames stood with his full glass. “Gentlemen, I hope you realise how rare and delightful this meal has been, how well-chosen every dish, and how exquisite every wine. I can scarcely believe all this was done in my honour, but so it is, and for all these pleasures we have one man to thank. To our host!”

They all stood and said, “To our host!” and drank, while George blushed and looked quite remarkably pleased.

The waiters efficiently swept the port away and replaced it with coffee and cognac. The drink had begun to have its effect even on Soames, who’d been careful with it. It had all been so good, and the sort of thing he knew to cherish and enjoy now. The claret in particular had been a treasure that would vanish entirely into memory. He drank coffee, hoping to clear his head, but no longer had the strength of will to resist the cognac as well as he might have wished.

The cognac made him melancholic and thoughtful, even through the warmth. Four more days and he’d be standing at the altar with Irene, putting the ring on her finger.

He was going to be married again. In one way it was his third marriage; in another deeper way it was his first marriage, done over again. His chance to get it right this time. His chance to love his wife properly, to treat her as she deserved, to be a good and loving husband. She’d promised to be a good and loving wife to him on that day so long ago, in that first life, and he’d told her she wouldn’t fail. She had failed, and he had failed to be a good and loving husband to her as well. This time he would put his whole self into it. He knew more now. He knew more about himself. He knew more about her. He knew more about what the trouble was, and how he’d got it wrong the first time.

Then dinner was over, and they were making their way out of the private room and downstairs. Old Jolyon and George had some kind of discussion with the Kettner’s maître d’hôtel that Soames turned his back on, lest he hear something he wasn’t supposed to. He went out into the street and breathed in the cool air gratefully. It was a crisp October evening, cloudless, with the stars and moon visible overhead.

A man from the restaurant fetched a hansom, and Archibald set his foot on its step. Soames rested a hand on his shoulder. “We’ll talk when I’m back,” he said. “Don’t do anything until then.”

“Thank you, Cousin Soames,” said Archibald. He climbed into the hansom and was gone. Soames could only hope he’d understood the message.

The next man into a cab was Dartie. George slapped Dartie on his back and saw him off heartily, saving Soames the trouble. Then came George himself. Soames found this difficult.

“George,” Soames said. “I cannot say enough about this dinner. It was beyond anything I might have dreamed.”

“But not beyond what you deserved,” George said. “You’re not what I thought, Cousin Soames.”

“Neither are you, Cousin George.”

“Let us say no more about it, shall we?”

“Agreed.”

“It was a fine dinner,” their uncle Jolyon said. “And the cigars were good. Your palate is notable, young man. I salute you. Come round for dinner some evening, and talk wine with me.”

“Thank you, Uncle,” said George, who looked as if the sky had fallen twice.

“Capital dinner, capital company,” said Parkes, and there was the charm. Parkes now had two friends and business partners, it seemed.

Parkes and Soames bundled George into a hansom, and off he went.

A man from Kettner’s brought the next hansom up, this one for Old Jolyon. He paused a moment before it with Soames.

“Well done,” his uncle said, simply.

“Thank you, sir.”

“I shall see you on Wednesday.”

This was respect from a man he had never felt respect from before. Why? There was no telling. But now they’d found a bridge through Irene, whom Old Jolyon had loved in both lives. Soames could understand that. So he shook hands with his uncle, and they held it for a heartbeat longer than he might have expected. He nodded, and watched his uncle as he climbed into the hansom.

Parkes was last of all. It took all of Soames’s experience and control to hold onto himself here, all the more so because of that last glass of cognac.

“Parkes.”

“Forsyte.”

Soames looked at him and could not speak.

Parkes said, “Tuesday evening, my rooms. Mind you bring the ring.”

A handshake, a hand on his shoulder that Soames let himself lean into, and Parkes was into his cab and off.

Soames himself walked down the Soho pavements, intending to clear his head and tire himself out. He needed to walk off the wine; he’d perhaps tuck himself into a cab when he’d done so. As he walked, he considered the man he was and the man he’d become.

In most ways he was the same man he’d always been. He would sit quietly and rub his thumb on his ring while he thought. He hated to be noticed. He knew the law and he knew how to make money—how did Parkes put it? as a science. He had a deeply ingrained sense of responsibility; he couldn’t leave things undone. He was still prone to sulking, and he was still frightening when he was angry. But he could also show his parents he loved them, tell Irene he loved her, open his heart to her and tell her his secrets, and listen to her when she told him hers. He could manage to tell both Parkes and his cousin George that he appreciated them.

He made his way south out of Soho, past Leicester Square, still noisy and full of Saturday-night theatre-goers. He passed through them and out into the open spaces of Trafalgar Square. He paused to look up at Nelson on his column. It was an event barely in living memory, only seventy-six years ago. Aunt Ann might remember something of it, if he asked her. Watershed moments like Trafalgar and Waterloo hadn’t happened since. They didn’t put anybody on a column after Jutland, or build statues for the battle of Amiens.

Soames pulled his eyes down from Nelson to the pavements before him, and started walking again. The evening was cool but clear, with stars visible above him. His feelings about London were so tangled. It was his birthplace, his family’s centre, the place he knew best and possibly the place he cared most about, but it was not his home. Home had been Mapledurham, on the river. He’d been round the world in that first life, had seen all sorts of amazing things in a quite fortunate and long life. He’d been blessed in many ways, if not in the one way he’d wished for most. At least he’d had Fleur, and at least he knew that somewhere she and Michael were in London forty-five years on with his grandson.

He’d learned how to be a father. An over-indulgent one, perhaps, because he’d known Fleur would be his one and only child, but he’d loved her and done well by her, and in the end died for her. That would always be an eerie thought, however long he held it.

He walked along the Mall, through Horse Guards, and onto Whitehall, Big Ben in sight now. His body was starting to feel good, warm from the exercise, beginning to sweat off the dinner and the wine. He was feeling more clear-headed.

He’d thought of this second life as punishment, hadn’t he. He’d woken on the train and thought it meant the gates of Paradise had been closed to him. He had to do penance for his sin and then he’d be released. It wasn’t that, not exactly. This was both penance and Paradise at once. He’d never finish making amends, but so long as he stayed on the straight and narrow, so long as he lived a godly and righteous life, so long as he treated Irene as he ought, he would taste Paradise on earth. None of it would be easily won; he didn’t deserve ease. But he did deserve to enjoy the sweetness when he did get it right, when he was worthy of Irene and her love.

It was all rather terrifying when he thought about it, so he tried not to. Instead he put one foot before the other until he found his way back to his rooms and fell into his bed.

XXXII. A Forsyte wedding: Oct 12, 1881

Soames spent the night before his wedding with Parkes in his latest place in Belgravia. They didn’t eat much; Soames was too worked up to eat. Parkes tried to give him a brandy, but Soames refused it. Parkes tried in vain to distract him with talk about contracts that needed drawing up for the development of his latest property acquisitions, the ones that George had scouted out for him, but Soames could not manage to keep his mind even on that. He paced back and forth across Parkes’s sitting room ceaselessly, until Parkes made him drink a negus and go to bed.

Soames fell asleep immediately in the darkness of Parkes’s guest bedroom. If he dreamed, he did not remember it.

They were awakened extremely early by Parkes’s man Hollis, who brought them each tea and breakfast, then shaved them in Parkes’s dressing room. He then helped them dress.

Soames and his tailor had taken some pains over his clothing for today, because he would not be seen wearing anything but what was carefully correct, knowing that Irene would be beautifully dressed. He in fact had already seen her in her dress, as wedding photographs had been taken several days earlier, but today was different. Today he would stand up in church in front of his family and friends.

He was wearing what he ought, all made for the occasion: black calfskin boots, pale grey trousers, an immaculately white linen shirt with collar and cuffs, peacock cuff-links bright against the cuffs’ starched perfection. Over this, a white silk waistcoat, into which he threaded his watch chain. A dark blue morning coat over it all. Signet ring on his little finger. He tucked a handkerchief, scented with eau de cologne, into a coat pocket. Hollis fussed over him at this point, and retied his lavender cravat and repositioned the gold pin. Soames submitted to it, though he felt uncomfortable, because his own hands were not entirely steady. Hollis refused to allow him to put most of what he wanted into his pockets. Soames bowed his head to the instruction, and instead tucked it all into the case that would join his clothing at Park Lane, when he changed to travel. It was a very polite iron hand that ruled over Parkes.

Into his buttonhole, a white rosebud. In his hand, a black silk top hat. He looked into the glass. There the bridegroom stood, ready for whatever it was that would happen next. Parkes’s face appeared in the glass over his shoulder.

“Cheer up, old man,” Parkes said. “Come on downstairs. George will be here any minute.”

George arrived on time, looking impeccable, wearing exactly what Soames was wearing, down to the peacock cuff-links. Hollis inspected all three of them and passed them. Soames handed the ring over to Parkes’s care, and watched him stow it away in his waistcoat pocket.

The three got into their cab—along with Hollis, who was attending, as were nearly all the Park Lane servants—and were driven to St George’s. Of course Emily had insisted on St George’s, and Soames hadn’t had the strength of will to resist his mother on this topic. There was a brief skirmish about who paid for the cab, won by Parkes, then Parkes led a suddenly nervous Soames into the vestry by the side door. They were early, as was appropriate. Soames stood uselessly in the vestry while Parkes went in to speak to the rector. He couldn’t remember what he’d done last time. He couldn’t remember a thing about last time, other than how utterly proud and confident he’d felt, how he’d claimed his bride with the belief that they’d return from the honeymoon with Irene in love with him, a good and loving wife, and he the perfect husband.

That had not been how it had gone, had it.

He looked out through the opened vestry door at the church. It was a beautiful interior. The reredos was notable. Had he been married here last time? No. It had been a Knightsbridge church. He couldn’t remember which one or why it had been there and not here—his mother would surely have wanted St George’s then, too.

Parkes came back. “All is well. The rector verified I have the ring. I verified he has a Bible. We both verified the church has an altar.”

“Reassuring,” said Soames, tartly.

“I’ve got a flask in my pocket if you need it,” Parkes said, perfectly seriously.

Soames shook his head. “I’ll manage.”

He paced around the little vestry for a few more minutes, listening to the rising murmur of conversation in the church beyond. His family was arriving to see him be married. Irene’s Conservatoire friends and their families would be there. Somewhere in the church Mrs Lomax would be sitting, for those two had arrived in town to do their duty and maintain appearances.

Parkes went out again and came back smiling. “Your cousin is in his element. Utterly delighted to be gossiping with everyone as he pretends to seat them.”

Soames could not smile back. Waiting in the vestry was destroying him. His second marriage to Irene was before him, and he would either pass the test and enjoy a taste of heaven on earth or fail and be doomed. He didn’t know how to do it. He’d never know how. This was folly. He leaned against the vestry wall and groaned.

Parkes laid a hand on his back. “Steady,” he said.

“What if I am a brute to her again?” Soames said, in complete despair. “What if I still don’t know how to be a good husband?” He let his forehead come to rest on the wall.

Parkes rubbed his back gently, and mercifully did not offer him the flask. “Steady, steady. You’re a good man, Forsyte. You’ll get it right. Stand up straight now.”

Soames clenched his jaw, and levered himself away from the wall. He stood up ramrod-straight. “What’s the time?”

“Five more minutes, old man. You’ll live through them.”

“What if she’s late?”

“You’ll live through that, too.”

“What if she doesn’t come?”

“We’ll go and get blind drunk. Don’t be an ass, Forsyte—she’ll come. She’s just as mad about you as you are about her.”

“Oh,” Soames said, faintly. He breathed, and felt his shoulders settle into place, and his jaw ease. He looked at Parkes and nodded.

“Good man,” said Parkes, under his breath. He brushed at Soames’s shoulder where he’d been leaning against the wall.

Soames settled himself to wait, as solidly and composedly as he could, hands behind his back. He would be himself. He would be contained. There was nothing to be done but to show up at the altar and say his responses with as much depth as he felt them.

Parkes peeked out of the door again and took a good look at what was happening in the church. Then he turned back to Soames and his own attitude became purely formal. He touched Soames’s arm.

“The rector’s here, come on.”

One last deep breath. One last settling of the shoulders into place. Soames nodded to Parkes. He was ready.

Parkes and Soames walked out in controlled, solemn procession. He saw his parents, his sister, seated in the front row on the family side of the church. He caught his father’s eye. He and Parkes joined the rector at the foot of the chancel steps. The man smiled kindly at Soames, and nodded at Parkes, who tapped his waistcoat pocket in yet another confirmation. Soames’s mind was spinning despite his outward composure. And then he thought about what Parkes had just said. She was as mad about him as he was about her. It was true. She was mad about him. They shared so much more this time and knew so much more about each other. He might even understand her this time. She was—they were—a warm glow suffused through him, starting in the middle of his chest and radiating out. He was about to marry her, and this time—this time! this life!—she was fond of him. She kissed him of her own accord.

The church was beautiful—the glass in the east windows was particularly lovely. He was pleased to be marrying her here, in a space that was worthy of her.

And then there was some kind of noise at the other end of the church, and sunlight streamed into the dimness from the church doors opening. The light flickered as figures came through the doors—first George, looking solemn, then Lucie and Miss Whitford. Behind them—her. Trailing behind, the little red-crowned figure of June, holding her train. The processional played and they made their way toward him. He locked eyes with Irene and saw nothing else as she came up the aisle on the arm of that unnameable, unutterable fellow. The fellow delivered her to the chancel step.

Soames took her hand with contained ferocity. She was his, not that fellow’s, and he would defend her to the death from him. Then he breathed. She was safe here. He glanced sidelong at her. She seemed much steadier than he felt, for she squeezed his hand and gave him a tiny nod.

The rector spoke the familiar words in his clear ringing voice. “Dearly beloved, we are gathered together here in the sight of God, and in the face of this congregation, to join together this Man and this Woman in holy Matrimony; which is an honourable estate, duly considering the causes for which Matrimony was ordained. First, It was ordained for the procreation of children.”

Children. He was a little afraid to look at Irene at these words.

“Secondly, It was ordained for a remedy against sin…”

He glanced aside at Irene here, and found her looking straight ahead of herself, at the rector.

“Thirdly, It was ordained for the mutual society, help, and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity. Into which holy estate these two persons present come now to be joined.”

This ought to be the first reason, in his view. This was what he craved beyond all else. Yes, he wanted a companion in his bed; yes, he wanted children. But more than anything, he wanted this. And he wanted to give Irene this. He stole another look at her. She was looking aside at him as well.

“Therefore if any man can shew any just cause, why they may not lawfully be joined together, let him now speak, or else hereafter for ever hold his peace.”

Soames held his breath. Who would speak, but he himself? He knew he would forever hold his peace. It was unspeakable and therefore it would remain unspoken.

“I require and charge you both, as ye will answer at the dreadful day of judgement when the secrets of all hearts shall be disclosed, that if either of you know any impediment ye do now confess it.”

Soames’s heart lurched. Surely the secret of his heart was already known? His first life, if it was an impediment, if it had to be confessed, surely the Lord already knew.

The rector turned to him. Soames drew in a deep breath and let it out. Now it began.

“Wilt thou have this Woman to thy wedded wife, to live together after God’s ordinance in the holy estate of Matrimony? Wilt thou love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto her, so long as ye both shall live?”

Soames forsook the Irene he had so badly hurt: he let go of her. It was done. He would love, comfort, and honour the woman beside him now.

“I will,” he said, as clearly as he could, with his heart in his voice, so that all the congregation could hear him.

“Wilt thou have this Man to thy wedded husband … Wilt thou obey him, and serve him, love, honour, and keep him, in sickness and in health; and, forsaking all other, keep thee only unto him, so long as ye both shall live?”

“I will.” Irene’s voice was entirely calm, and her face was serene and trusting. Looking at her reassured him: she had no doubts. She trusted him. He would live up to her trust.

“Who giveth this Woman to be married to this Man?”

Lomax touched Irene for what would be the last time, to take her right hand and place it into the rector’s hand. Then he backed away and was gone. The rector placed Irene’s hand into Soames’s right hand. Soames asked her the question with his eyes, and she squeezed his hand in response. Yes.

The rector prompted him, and Soames spoke his responses, once again for the entire church to hear, but looking directly at Irene the entire time.

“I, Soames, take thee Irene to my wedded wife, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I plight thee my troth.”

Soames released her hand. Irene then took his hand, and looked into his eyes and spoke to him as clearly and intensely as he’d spoken to her.

“I, Irene, take thee Soames to my wedded husband, to have and to hold from this day forward, for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love, cherish, and to obey, till death us do part, according to God’s holy ordinance; and thereto I give thee my troth.”

Irene released his hand after another surreptitious squeeze. Would she obey him? Did he even want her to? It seemed an absurd thing to want. He wanted her to love and cherish him.

Now Parkes stepped forward, and laid the ring upon the Bible the rector held open before him. He stepped back. The rector handed Soames the ring. He raised her hand in his left and waited. The rector spoke, and he repeated the words. He slid the ring onto her bare fourth finger, pausing after each phrase. His eyes were locked with hers while he spoke, and every bit of his heart was in his voice.

“With this ring I thee wed, with my body I thee worship, and with all my worldly goods I thee endow.”

This time he would not break that oath. He would not violate her with his body; he would worship her with it. He would give her his worldly goods so that she could leave him if she wished, and then never give her a reason to wish.

They then walked up the chancel with the rector to the altar and knelt before it together.

“Let us pray.”

Did he believe in this? He believed in something and it might as well be this. He knew that after death, something happened, there was a higher Power, and he knew that whatever it was, it was strictly just and yet kind. So he closed his eyes and prayed with the rector, a rather different prayer than what the man in the collar was reciting, but nonetheless heartfelt, that he might have the strength to do whatever she needed from him, that he not be the man he had been before, that he some day hear her tell him she loved him, and that he deserve it.

The rector joined their right hands and pronounced them man and wife. “Those whom God hath joined together, let no man put asunder.”

Then he pronounced a blessing upon them.

Soames was somewhere else, now, holding Irene’s hand and looking into her eyes. The rector was chanting one of the Psalms, but he wasn’t paying attention to it. He was paying attention to her, to her serene face, to their hands touching, to her scent, her entire being kneeling next to him so near, she who was now his wife.

And then the rector was done. They rose, and she took his left arm. He led her away from the altar and down the chancel steps. He was trembling, and he could feel her pressing his arm in reassurance. They walked arm in arm, and his swelling pride was overcoming his nerves now—they were married, and she was his wife. He was hers! She was his! The world knew. It was done. Only a little more to get through, and they would be alone, and he could taste the sweet blessings of marriage.

Into the vestry, to the registry book. He signed his name, and watched her sign hers: Irene Heron. The last time she would sign that, God willing. And then out again into the main body of the church, his hat in hand, while the recessional played, and there was quite a racket as they paced solemnly back down the aisle. Soames paid the racket no mind, but made his steady way to the church doors with Irene on his arm.

Through the doors, out into the fresh air. It was a clear autumn day, not cold, with that pale cool mid-morning light of the season. The bells were ringing. Soames helped her into James’s barouche, top up, and was helped in turn by the coachman. The door was shut upon them. They were quite alone now, and the wedding was complete: they were married. Soames let out a long breath, closed his eyes, and let himself fall back against the seat of the carriage for a moment. It was in motion now: wheels rolling on pavement, horse hooves clopping. He remembered driving Fleur to her wedding in an open motor-car. Much more comfortable. Did he like motor-cars better? Oh, Fleur! He had said his final farewell to his daughter, so that he might make it right with the woman next to him now. And yet, he would never say it. He would always feel her presence and her absence, his quick restless daughter, farewell.

He opened his eyes to the present again and sat up straight. Irene was looking at him with a mysterious smile on her face, the one that meant she was not saying what she was so pleased about. He said, very carefully, “May I kiss you?”

“You may,” she said, still with that mysterious smile.

He took off his hat, lifted her veil, leaned in and there she was, meeting him with lips parted, willing to find out what it was. He wet his lips and kissed her again, ever so gently, his own lips parted, heard her make a soft sound. He bent to her again with a mind to set her on fire as best he could, to show her every bit of passion he felt.

Here he had the advantage of a lifetime of kissing and being kissed—perhaps not a lifetime, but twenty-five years of a marriage with a woman who had enjoyed kissing and hadn’t minded that it was him doing it. He knew how to make this kiss a memorable one, gentle enough not to frighten Irene, a soft thing that teased and fluttered at the corners of her mouth before her lips parted and he was kissing her properly. He backed away before he’d tasted enough of her and brushed his lips along her jaw to her ear, rather keenly missing his moustache just then. A nuzzle of her ear, the temptation of her throat and shoulder resisted, and he eased away from her. Her eyes were closed and her face flushed. Her lips were still parted for him. He brushed his thumb against them, such beautiful lips, and touched his forehead to hers. He wanted to keep going, to press himself against her, to know her fully and allow her to know him. But not yet, no—he could wait, now. It was so close.

“Soames,” she said.

“Yes?”

“So far—so far I think I hear it.”

“There is more to hear,” he said. “Tonight. If you wish.”

“I do so wish. But—”

“Yes?”

“You may say a little more, while we drive.”

He smiled, in a genuinely open smile for the first time since she had fled Park Lane, and gathered her in for a deep kiss that lingered and said everything he could possibly say in a carriage moving at full trot towards Park Lane.

---

June was triumphant after another successful train-carrying. She ate cake, tasted champagne offered by her grandfather and still disliked it, and was delighted to congratulate her friends Cousin Soames and Cousin Irene, in whose marriage she had played such a pivotal role. Irene thanked her with a kiss, and Soames with the formal courtesy he’d used when they’d eaten dinner together before.

He was stuffy, but he was a polite and helpful stuffy, and he’d told her interesting things at dinner, so she wouldn’t tell him he was stuffy any more. Not when she wanted to spend more time learning how Irene managed to do all the things she did so well. And if Irene liked him, he couldn’t be entirely terrible. Irene was magnificent and everything June wanted to be. Though marriage was ridiculous and June didn’t understand why people did it. It was of no account, anyway.

There were many other people there to greet, like her great-aunts. Aunt Ann was impossibly wrinkled and old and she was always saying odd things that June didn’t understand, and sometimes she said things about missing June’s father that June had no time for. Her father had left, and her mother had been angry, and so had she.

She’d met the rest of the wedding party when photographs had been taken. Irene’s bridesmaids had been interesting, and Soames’s best man had flirted with her and made her blush, before he had started flirting with one of the bridesmaids quite seriously. Her Cousin George told her he flirted with everyone and to pay him no mind—he would bet her a shilling that she’d catch him flirting with Aunt Ann at the wedding.

June decided to go and look to see if this were true. Flirting was horrible. He did have a quite pleasant moustache, though.

---

Emily circulated, watching the staff move round the room carrying glasses of champagne. Warmson came round to her and offered her a tray and she took a glass. “Are we doing well?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said.

“And there is enough for you all to celebrate properly later?”

“Yes, ma’am. Mr Soames ensured it.”

Emily smiled, for of course Soames had, even though it was his own wedding breakfast. One could not stop the boy from doing it. “Thank you, Warmson. You are all doing so wonderfully today. Carry on.”

It had taken much arranging to get this far. Invitations and menu preparation and hiring staff and laying in enough champagne for the guests, ordering the cake from Gunter’s in time to get it, that whole business about the trousseau, getting the travel arrangements in order. Soames of course had been a marvellous help through it all, such a reliable boy.

The day had been perfect thus far. The wedding had been beautiful, and in St George’s as she’d wished, such a beautiful place, so fashionable. Soames had so very obviously meant his wedding vows as he spoke them, and so had Irene, and it had made her cry quietly to hear them. James had reached out and held her hand, of all things, it had been so moving. She would miss having the dear girl with them, but it was good to see her boy grown and married, a man with wife and home. He had said he wanted to give them a grandson, which would make James so very happy. Not that they didn’t love Publius, their first grandchild, but James did have his dreams, and Soames knew it.

Irene was truly lovely, and had looked so good on his arm coming back down the aisle, and was so lovely again standing with him now talking to guests. Their children would be most handsome indeed. This wedding was all she might have hoped for as a mother. Winifred’s wedding had been perfect, and so had this one. She’d seen both her children married, and they’d both married for love.

---

The presents were on display to be inspected by one and all, and this of course was a great highlight of any Forsyte wedding. It was a special highlight for the wedding of James’s only son, and had been a topic of heated discussion on the Forsyte ’Change for weeks. They were all likely to be swayed by how prosperous the groom was, and how likely he was to expect nice things, but the elder generation had its habits that could not be budged. Soames, of course, was a connoisseur, and thus known to expect them to spend to their means, and his bride! Well! One did not want to be caught giving Irene anything other than the best. It seemed sacrilegious, somehow, to give such a distinguished-looking woman a tawdry wedding present.

Aunt Juley and Aunt Hester walked along the display of presents, pricing them quietly. Aunt Hester thought it was all looking quite as it ought, and Soames ought to be quite pleased, and she said as much to Juley as they both studied the display.

Jolyon had given a dinner service—Jolyon always gave a dinner service—and Roger had given a plain good claret jug, something they’d use every day, and of excellent quality. Swithin had given a silver épergne, which did not seem quite the thing, even to Aunt Hester.

“Who wants one of those nowadays?” she said, in a disapproving voice.

“I heard George speaking French with that lovely young girl who was a bridesmaid,” Aunt Juley said. “He was quite gallant to her. It was a very handsome wedding party, don’t you think? Dear Irene has brought such style to it all.”

Hester said, “They say George is following in his father’s footsteps now, collecting house property, and developing it. Look at this salad bowl from Susan. So thoughtful.”

Juley replied, “House property. He is building it, they say. Quite like our father did. I do wonder why, after he’d been so keen on horses.”

Hester said, “Oh, look, Nicholas gave them spoons with a pheasant crest stamped on them.”

Juley looked at the spirit case from Archibald, a most handsome item with silver decorations. Beside it was a set of champagne glasses from George, in a very odd shape. “George and Soames are great friends now, they say.”

Hester had moved on. “Oh, a lovely Sèvres dessert service from the Darties. So thoughtful.”

“And of course that French girl is Irene’s friend. It seems quite odd to me.”

“Oh, Juley, look, there’s the family silver Ann sent, the salvers our dear father used. She is so fond of Soames. He’s quite her favourite.”

“Her favourite now that wicked young Jo has gone and run off with June’s governess. They say he has a second child with her now! A daughter! So shocking.”

“They’re married now. It’s not shocking at all, Juley, dear. What is this interesting blue and white china? Is this the new aesthetic?”

---

George was looking forward to the next part, the toasts. Miss Whitford had the bride’s bouquet ready to distribute. He wanted to watch Lucie get a flower, just to see her smile. The toasts were of course something Cousin Soames was going to endure, the poor chap. He always looked miserable when the room was looking at him and he had to take notice. He hadn’t looked miserable saying his vows earlier, mind, and neither had his new Cousin Irene, and well, if that was captivity, it did indeed seem sweet, as Soames had said.

The first toast was to the bride. Which of his relatives was going to stand up and sing the praises of that gorgeous woman with no money, that terrible French artistic influence corrupting the pure Englishness of the family?

The devil—? His own father was standing up with a glass of champagne. His own father was going to toast the praises of Irene, the new Mrs Soames? Pigs had wings, apparently. George rubbed his chin with the hand not holding his glass and waited to hear exactly what his father would say.

Roger looked around the room before he spoke. He said, “When I was first introduced to this distinguished young lady, I was taken aback. What was our Soames about? An orphan musician who trained in Paris! I myself have given the French some chaff at times, I admit. I don’t trust ’em. But I am happy to say I was quite wrong about Miss Irene. Meeting her has been a revelation. A woman who studied at the Paris Conservatoire has special graces I never expected. The new Mrs Soames is welcome to play in our drawing room any time she likes. To the health of Soames and Irene!”

The room drank, very cheerfully, and George drank as well, cheerfully but moderately. He’d enthusiastically done bumpers and no heel taps at Dartie’s wedding, but not today. Lucie was sitting next to him today, and he had no intention of being drunk next to her. She deserved his most careful attention. Come to think of it, when had he last been drunk? But that was immaterial. Had his father—had his father said what he thought he’d heard? Had his father said that he no longer feared this French influence? Could he tell his father what he was about with Lucie? The possibility spun George around so violently that he decided to stop thinking about it for the moment. Later. Tomorrow.

George pulled his attention away from this dizzying thought and back to the moment’s amusement, which was watching Soames writhe. There it went, Soames was standing, glass in hand. He looked as if he were facing a firing party.

He said, “Irene and I give our most gracious thanks to our friends and family for doing us the honour of celebrating with us today. It is such happiness to see you all.” And then he sat again promptly. Good man, keeping it short and sweet.

Miss Whitford gave Lucie a flower, the first gift from Irene’s bouquet, and she and Lucie smiled secretly at each other. Lucie then held it up so George could see. Orange blossom, the bridal blossom. It had a truly sweet scent. He met Lucie’s eyes and flushed and looked down. Fortunately at the next moment the wedding party was distracted by the sight of June receiving a white rosebud from Irene’s own hands, and expressing her delight with a cry the whole room could hear. That was adoration on the girl’s face or George would be clean bowled. Then Miss Whitford was over handing out yet more flowers to George’s own sister Francie, who was happy to receive stephanotis and orange blossom from her. This tradition was sentimental, and George hated to admit it, but he found it pleasing. He could not laugh at it.

George was maliciously interested in the next toast, which was to be to the bride’s parents. He’d heard the full story from Lucie and was fully ready to join Soames in a good bout of violence if one was needed to deal with Irene’s step-father. He had seen Soames’s face when he took Irene’s hand from that blackguard’s, and he was in full sympathy.

---

Soames was braced for the toast to the bride’s parents. He didn’t know who would be giving it, or what would be said, or what Lomax would say in reply. He had resolved already to stay calm no matter what happened, and instead to stare icily at the fellow, but he did wonder.

To his surprise, Uncle Nicholas stood, champagne glass in hand: his spry uncle Nick, the eternal schoolboy, looking solemn but somehow a little bit mischievous. His uncle Nicholas? He suspected something was afoot, but what?

His uncle held his glass high, and said, “The bride’s parents are not with us today. Our new niece Irene lost her mother Cecilia young, and her father only a few short years ago. Though they are not with us now, their memory is with us in this room. Their blessing is with us, for they brought this wonderful young lady into the world, and they raised her up to be the gracious woman she is. To Professor Heron and Mrs Cecilia Heron!”

Soames stood with the room, and drank the surprisingly sombre toast with them all, and sat again. Answer that, Lomax, he thought. He looked for the man, and saw him begin to rise, glass in hand. But the room was not turning toward him because another man had stood first: his own father.

James looked magnificent in his frock coat, glossy, shining, with a glow on his face that Soames almost never saw there. He touched his nose, looked around himself at the assembled Forsytes all gazing at him with champagne-reddened cheeks, and sniffed. Lomax sat again without a word said.

James spoke. “When Soames first told me he was engaged to be married to Irene, I asked him what he was about. She was orphaned; her parents had left her nothing. He told me that when I met her, I would understand. I was not easy in my mind. I was worried about him, about her. That was until Emily and I met her. She’s lived under our roof for the last few months and we’ve come to love her as if she were our own daughter. Professor Heron and Mrs Cecilia Heron aren’t here to thank you, Nick, but I’ll thank you. To the bride’s parents!”

This reply emptied every glass in the room and there was a great noise. Long before the end of this speech Soames had turned to Irene and taken her hands to ensure she was steady. She was: her eyes were damp, but she was smiling. Soames brushed her lips with his, and then lifted his glass to her, in thanks to her parents that he would never know.

---

That was, George decided, most neatly planned and executed. By Soames’s face, it was a complete surprise, and by Irene’s face, it was touching indeed. He glanced at Lucie, and what he saw there moved him to surreptitiously touch her hand, lingering for as long as he dared. He wished he could speak to her. Perhaps later. The next toast passed them by while he sat with her, having feelings of the sort that he’d always sworn he never would. Nothing ever happened to him, he’d once told Aunt Ann, and how mistaken he’d been. Something had happened to him, and now he sat, carefully close enough to her that his fingers might graze hers to reassure them both.

The men around him stood and toasted, and George stood with them, quite by instinct, and drank. He sat. Parkes—really the most improbable sort of man to be Cousin Soames’s best friend, but there you were; he himself was just as improbable—was standing with pure happiness on his face.

“It is with great pleasure and delight that I thank you for your praise of our bridesmaids, from the young lady June who carried the bride’s train so admirably, to the lovely Mademoiselle Béranger, to Miss Whitford who bestows flowers upon us all—they are all surely the loveliest young ladies in the room.”

They were lovely, though one more than the others, in his opinion, and George said so with his face over his champagne glass, as clearly as he might.

---

After that last toast the wedding party all retired upstairs. Soames and Irene both needed to change into travelling clothes, and of course Irene would need help doing so. Irene and her bridesmaids were in her room across the hall. Soames and Parkes went up to his boyhood room, the room where he’d returned with his homing instinct that first day he’d awakened on that train. Parkes’s man Hollis was there once again to help him change. Soames was grateful but again awkward.

“You got through it,” Parkes said.

“I did,” he said.

“You said your vows like you meant them. So did she.”

Soames looked down at his feet, then was immediately nudged to look up again as Parkes’s man tied the four-in-hand knot in his travelling-clothes tie. There was nothing to say to that. He had, and he’d known the entire congregation had heard it, and he’d known what he was about. She had too, and that was a joy.

Soames looked at Parkes in the mirror. He was genuinely happy. Things had changed between them so much over the last months. What he’d once tentatively called a friendship he now understood properly, and he had a second friendship to compare it to. What a strange thing this second life was.

“Parkes,” Soames said. He tried to find the words and failed yet again, then gave up and shook his head. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, old man.” Parkes rested a hand on his shoulder. Soames, held in place by Hollis, was unable to return the gesture, and was reduced to blinking rapidly lest emotion show itself somehow. Parkes released him with the usual hearty clap.

His pockets were once again full of the things he expected to be there, most importantly his propelling pencil and his notebook. He thanked Hollis gravely, took a deep breath, and made his way downstairs. Before long, Irene came down to join him, in travelling clothes and hat, cloaked for the journey. It was time for farewells.

He and Irene first found Mrs Lomax. Irene embraced her. “Thank you,” she said. “You did your best by me, and you were the reason I met Soames.”

Mrs Lomax had little to say in response, but seemed touched, and embraced Irene in turn. Soames shook her hand and said merely, “I will keep your investments at their best.”

They sought out their aunts and uncles. A kiss to Aunt Ann where she sat, embraces to Aunts Hester and Juley. Hearty handshakes from Uncles Jolyon, Nicholas, and Roger. An overly-long kiss for the bride from Uncle Swithin.

Farewells to Lucie and Miss Whitford. A carefully formal and courteous farewell to June from Soames, and a kiss from Irene.

George was touchingly charming to Irene when they bid him farewell. He kissed her hand and held it over his heart. “I owe you more than I can say. You know why.”

“I do. See you deserve it,” Irene said. Then she kissed George’s cheek and made him flush scarlet and stagger back into Parkes’s arms.

Winifred got kisses from both of them, and Dartie a warmer handshake than he deserved.

They both kissed his mother, who was of course weeping gently into a lace handkerchief. Soames murmured his thanks into her ear, for he now understood how much she managed it all.

James embraced him at the door. “Bless you, my boy,” he said.

“Pater,” was the only thing Soames could say in return, as he held his father. He knew what his father had done, quietly, in the weeks before the wedding: he’d settled his own money on Irene, without a word to Soames until after it was done.

Soames stepped aside, and Irene kissed James’s lined cheek while she embraced him, and it was James’s turn to be speechless.

They went out the door and down the steps, and rice pelted them from every direction. Soames was grateful there were no shoes thrown. He had no idea what that was about. He had no idea what the rice was about either, but at least it didn’t hurt when one was struck by it.

Then they were helped into a cab with luggage on top, this time on their way to the station. Paris awaited.

XXXIII. A Paris night

Many hours later, they were in their hotel, the Hôtel Meurice, overlooking the Tuileries. Not that they’d seen anything; they had arrived after dark, and been escorted to their bridal suite almost immediately. Their luggage was delivered safely, and their rooms were lovely; they would have a view of the ruins in the morning. Soames found himself uninterested in such things; he had space in his mind for only one thing now.

Mere minutes after they entered their suite, there was a knock on the door, and a man bearing a tray with an ice bucket and two glasses arrived. The bucket held a bottle of champagne for the couple. Soames, puzzled, was about to say that he had not sent down for anything yet, but the man stopped him. It had all been arranged, he was told, by someone who’d sent ahead with instructions and a card for the honeymooning couple. Soames took the card and slid it into a pocket uncertainly while he watched the sommelier open the champagne. An expert twist, and the bottle popped open with no fuss. The man sniffed the cork, poured a little, and handed the glass to Soames. Soames considered it, then tasted it and raised his eyebrows.

“Stupéfiant,” Soames said, unsure it was the right register to use. The bottle was swaddled and he could not read the label. Parkes, he thought. Parkes had overdone it.

Two glasses poured, and the sommelier was gone. Soames carried both glasses over to where Irene was standing at the double windows that opened onto the balcony. “Champagne,” he said. “It’s rather good.”

She took a glass from him and tasted it, then looked at him.

Soames said, “When I say rather good, I think it might be the best I’ve ever had.” He lifted his glass, looked at her over the brim, and drank. She mirrored him, then made an expression similar to the one he’d made when he’d tasted it. He said, “Sit with me?”

The gaslight in the room was low. There were two candles, one on the table, one by the divan. Soames led Irene over to the divan and sat beside her. He touched his glass to hers and gave her a look that lingered, then drank again. It was delicious, a trifle dry, but truly fine. He watched her drink, and smile over it.

“It is a superb wine,” she said. “Who chose it? Your friend Gregory? Cousin George?”

“There’s a note.”

He slid it out of his pocket and handed it to her. She opened it, read, and laughed quietly. She handed it back to him. It read:

Steady on, Forsyte. GP & GF

Soames sighed. “I’d thought it was Parkes, but of course it was both of them.” He slid it back into his pocket.

“They are fond of you, you know.”

He said nothing in return, but shook his head. He looked into her eyes over his glass, which gave a wonderful scent under his nose. He drank a little more wine, and she mirrored him.

“I’m not certain what happens next,” she said. He could hear the tremor in her voice.

Soames touched her face. “We should drink the champagne, I think. Warm ourselves and relax. There is no hurry.”

“I see.” Then she decided to smile at him, it seemed, and raise her glass to him. She said, “I have never given a toast. I had drunk very little champagne in my life until the last few months, when I have been poured quite a surprising amount of it, mostly by your uncle Swithin. But I have heard some toasts given.”

“Oh?”

“Indeed. I shall toast Soames, the man who I thought fell asleep at the Emperor Concerto, who said but music? when I talked of passion and surrender. That dear sweet man, who had so much locked inside him.”

She drank, and Soames flushed very red, remembering how he’d sat staring at her, unable to speak. Well, he sometimes did that even now, as he was doing at this very moment.

“Aren’t you going to toast me?”

She was teasing him, but of course he must rise to the challenge. He thought for a moment.

He raised his glass. “To Irene, who taught me what she meant by passion and surrender, by playing the Appassionata to me. May she—may she allow me to surrender to her again tonight.”

And he drank to her, because that would allow him to look away from her eyes after he’d said that. When he looked at her again, she was not blushing, but was looking at him quite seriously.

The champagne had now begun to course through Soames, and he knew it would be moving through her as well. The time for them to retire was approaching, and this made him catch his breath. His body knew what was coming. Did hers?

He said, very calmly, “Would you like more?”

“A little, please.”

He topped up their glasses and returned the bottle to the bucket. It would be a pity to waste this wine; it was shockingly good. He returned to Irene and offered her her glass. He wished he knew how to do it with the sort of flourish Parkes might manage, but he did not. He could only offer it with a contained, economical gesture, his own way. She took it, without seeming to care in the least what sort of gesture he made.

Soames sighed at himself, inside. Perhaps he need not fret so much.

Aloud, he said, “I should like to toast us.”

“Very well.” Her gaze on him was expectant, lips curved with that beautiful little smile, that mysterious look of satisfaction with what was happening around her.

Soames took a deep breath and lifted his glass to touch hers. “To the solemn watcher and his lonely purple flower.”

“Oh, Soames.” They both drank.

Then there was an awkward pause. There was only one thing to do now. He set his glass down and gently took hers to set it next to his. He gathered her hands in his and bent to kiss them for a long moment.

He rose and met her gaze. He said, quietly, “Shall I ring for the maid?”

She looked down at their joined hands, and nodded. He squeezed her hands, then released her. He walked over to the bell, and rang. He went back to her, took her hands again, and kissed her deeply. It would be soon now.

There was a knock at the door. They released each other and sat back hastily, though surely the maid knew what a honeymooning couple was about. The maid came in, avoiding his eyes, but looking only at Irene, bobbing towards her. She said something in French rapidly that he could not follow but Irene could. Irene looked at him, with some meaning in her eyes he could not guess at, and was gone into her dressing room, led by the maid.

Soames swallowed the rest of his champagne, heedless of its quality, out of pure nerves. She was about to be undressed by that maid, and dressed again in a nightgown made from Liberty silk chosen by Irene for this purpose. He knew what the challenge before him was. He knew what he ought to do. Pay attention to her. Hold himself under control. Do not yield to passion. Stay always aware of her needs, her reactions, her experience in the moment, her sounds and shivers and half-formed words, stay with her, not with himself. His own pleasure was an afterthought—it would happen no matter what; all she need do was hold him and let him linger a few extra moments embracing her and moving with her and he would yield himself to her.

He stood and breathed, then went to his own dressing room. There was a gas lamp burning low there, enough for him to see that strange man in the glass again, a dark-haired man with flat cheeks and a chinny face, who had a worried look and a line between his brows. The fellow was too thin. He wasn’t sneering, for once, and he didn’t have his nose lifted at a tilt, which made him almost unrecognisable. He also didn’t look as if he were angry or sulking. This fellow was about to go to bed with Irene. Unbidden, a smile crept out over the young man’s face. Soames rubbed his chin. He still wanted a moustache, but if he managed to smile now and then, he wasn’t too bad-looking.

Enough of that. He’d been in these clothes for many hours. It would be a relief to take them off. Soames pulled open a drawer: there was his nightshirt, his dressing gown.

He looked for his dressing case and found inside it that his bride had bought him a complete set of moustache grooming tools matched to the case, little scissors, wax, brushes. Soames swallowed. Well. She had apparently wanted her own money at least in part so that she could buy him presents. It was enough to make him weep and laugh at once. He touched them, and resolved to ask her what she meant by the gift. He would not guess at meaning any more; he would ask, lest he grow a great flowing thing that she hated.

And now, the ritual of a gentleman undressing, which would soothe him. Coat off, onto the clothes horse. Everything taken from coat pockets and tucked into his dressing case, removed as methodically as they had been slipped in. Watch-chain unthreaded. Waistcoat off. Silk braces off his shoulders, unbuttoned. Collar off, studs into a small dish. Cuff-links off, into the leather pouch. Trousers off, shirt off, everything hung on the clothes horse. A stroke of his thumb on the signet ring, more from habit than from necessity, and then that went into the pouch in the dressing case.

His hands were steady through all this. His heart was pounding. Soon. Soon. They would be man and wife soon. He would be tested soon.

Now the nightclothes. He took off his underclothing and put that aside. Nightshirt over his head, draping down to his somewhat knobbly knees. Dressing gown over the nightshirt. The dressing gown was a little warm in the suite, with its fires and gas lighting and candles, but it disguised his excitement. Would she mind if he took it off? He was unsure, suddenly, completely at sea, unsure what was allowed and what was not, what she might be comfortable with and not. What would he look like to her? He smoothed his hair with a hand. Ought he to shave? He ran a hand over his chin. Perhaps? It was not so very bristly, but if he had time—did he have time? He looked down at himself. It was no use. He was what he was in this moment. He needs must appear before her as the man he was and hope she understood.

He stole out of his dressing room into the sitting room, then made his first venture into the bedroom, carrying the champagne bottle and glasses with him. It was a bridal suite, and the bed was large, a four-poster, with a heavy carved wooden headboard. A candle burned on a little table to each side. The bed was turned down for them, coverlet and sheets beneath. The fire was warm and the burning wood smelled good to him, fragrant. He set bottle and glasses down on the table closer to her dressing room door. It was warm enough that he did not need the dressing gown; he shed it and draped it across the chest at the foot of the bed.

Now he had only to wait.

What the devil was taking her so long? He paced on bare feet to and fro across the room. He should have shaved! Why did women have to wear so much clothing? They would get past it eventually, shed the corset, and the world would not end. In that other dressing room, the maid was unbuttoning her dress, unlacing her corset, removing everything she wore—the thought made him pace faster.

His nerves rose with every turn round the room. The last time he’d been with her, he’d—Don’t think about that. Think about love. Think about his promise to love her so much it possessed her and moved her to surrender to him. Think about that. Think of her first and not himself. Get it right, Forsyte. Get this right. He knew what he had to do. He thought maybe he knew how.

God, it would be wonderful. If only she ever came out of that dressing room.

He heard a door open and shut elsewhere in the suite. He went to the bed and sat down and tried to breathe. She was going to come in to him in a moment.

Her dressing room door opened, and she stepped into the bedroom. He looked, and caught his breath: a creamy silk peignoir disguised her form, hinting at what lay below, her hair down, cascading over her shoulders. So much dark golden hair, so much, flowing loose. She had not plaited it tonight. She paused in the doorway, a raised hand resting on the frame, and looked across the room at him.

“Irene,” he said, with what remained of his voice.

Irene walked towards him. He could not look away. She was afraid; he could see it in how she moved, so hesitant. She had been putting a brave face on it when they’d been drinking champagne. He stood when she reached him and took her hand. It was cold in his. He was almost sweating.

He said, as calmly as he could manage, “Shall we sit on the bed together?”

She nodded. They sat.

“Would you like a little more champagne?”

“A very little, please.”

He brought a single glass over from the table and sat again. He held it to her lips; she tasted it. He tasted as well. Neither of them needed more. It was mere temporising. He set the glass on the table and turned back to her. Did she know how beautiful she was? Did he have any hope of finding the words? Her hair was so lush—it had haunted his dreams for so long, in his most secret thoughts, that dark gold hair, gleaming in the candlelight, flowing over her shoulders, unbound, uncontained, the sign that they were at last together.

He looked, and his breath came heavy.

“May I touch your hair?” he asked, very cautiously.

“You may.”

He could see that this request had calmed her somewhat. Her hair was no mystery for her. For him—He had no words for what it was like to stroke it, to run his fingers through it. No one saw this but he. No one could touch this but he. Her scent was everywhere in her hair, honey, roses, musk, so sweet and heady at once. He wanted to plait it for her, to play with it, to luxuriate in it, brush it for her. He gathered it in his hands, pulled it gently back, kissed her temple, kissed her neck, found his way back almost to the nape of her neck underneath it all. Every touch made him more excited. He loved her throat, her bare shoulders, the way they felt under his hands, how they felt to kiss. The nightgown was in the way. He wanted it gone so he could kiss her shoulders. Oh, why was it in the way? There were buttons. He could—No, Forsyte, no, slow down, steady on.

Soames got himself back under control with some difficulty. That had gone to his head faster than he’d thought possible. His entire body was alive and aware of her now. Every touch sent thrills through him. He pulled back to take her hands again and breathe himself down. He rested his forehead against her knuckles and almost groaned. That scent.

“Soames?”

“Irene,” he said, huskily. He raised his head. “Your hair is lovely.”

“I—you are making me feel loved. And wanted.”

“You are loved.” He kissed her hands. She was trembling very slightly. “And wanted. I want you, so very much. Do you want me? You may, if you wish to.”

“I think I do.” She stood, and reached for the elaborate bow at the waist of her peignoir. A little tug, and it came undone, and opened. She let it drop to the floor, and now Soames could truly see her form in the silk. He felt madness rising in him again. To forestall it, he stood and gathered her close against him, and nuzzled her ear.

“You are so beautiful,” he whispered to her. “Come. Let’s get into bed. We’ll hold each other, nothing more.”

She assented quietly. He drew her to the head of the bed, and climbed in ahead of her. He held the sheet up to welcome her. She was afraid again, he could see, holding her arms before her breasts and trembling a little. He must move carefully now, intentionally. He pulled the sheet up, then the coverlet. It was up to their chins, and they were warm now. He slipped his arm around her and moved in close enough to kiss her forehead. Not her lips yet, not until she gave him permission. Face to face, breath to breath, quiet, calm.

“Is this all right?”

“I think so.”

“How are you feeling?”

“You’re holding me so carefully. I’m safe. And nervous. And excited.”

“You are safe,” he said, as tenderly as he could.

“I can feel your voice vibrating in your chest,” she said. “You have a lovely voice. And a very special tender voice that you use only when you’re speaking to me, when we’re alone. You used it in church today, speaking your vows, and it was so moving.”

“Oh.” Everyone had heard him speaking like that to her. Well. They all knew how he felt, now. They all knew how much he loved his wife.

His wife, Irene. The woman next to him whom he had sworn to keep safe.

He took no liberties yet; she was not ready for liberties. They lay under the sheets simply holding each other, bodies barely touching, with almost nothing separating them. She was trembling against him still, whether from fear or excitement he could not tell. He was himself trembling, though he knew why. He stroked her back with an open soothing hand, trying to slow everything down for them both. He looked deep into her eyes, hoping to see something he could understand. Wide pupils, dark eyes, creamy skin warm from the candles at the bedside, lips dark from his insistent kisses earlier. No doubt he looked the same to her.

“May I kiss you?” he whispered.

“You may.”

One kiss, a chaste one, and a sigh from her. He felt a tension in her ease again. This she knew; this she was comfortable with. He let her kiss him and let her tell him when she wanted more. He expected her to want more chaste kisses, but Irene did not want chaste. She put a hand behind his head and tugged him closer and kissed him open-mouthed. That was licence to kiss her as he wished for long minutes, body against body, breathing together, exploring what it meant to kiss without barriers now that they could, to touch each other as they wished. He kissed her throat, kissed his way back up to her lips, and tasted them. She made a sound as much surprised as it was pleased, and he felt her tongue cautiously exploring his lips.

When he almost could not bear it any more, he broke away. “Irene. How is this?”

“So far… I feel it.” She was a little breathless. He knew what that meant. He kissed her, and she returned it with more intensity than he expected. The next few minutes were that: kissing with passion unrestrained, eyes closed, his hand on her back pulling her close, his knee finding its way between her thighs ever so slowly as she began to relax with him.

He drew back, and Irene made a little sound of dismay. “May I touch your body?” he asked. His voice was unrecognisably husky.

“You may,” sighed out more than spoken.

He let his hand move more freely while he kissed her, from her back forward to her hip, caressing everywhere he could reach, drawing her closer against him, until they were pressed against each other. He lifted her nightgown, slowly, slowly, while she clung to his neck. A hand, gently stroking with his palm, nothing frightening, soothing, moving up to her waist with the silk under his hand. He kissed her the while, keeping her mind on that, not on fear of what was to happen, instead on the pleasure she knew and was comfortable with. She shifted to allow him to pull it up further, and he coaxed her to lie back. He let his hand rove and find her most secret place. Her eyes fluttered shut. In her breath was buried the sound of pleasure that she did not yet know how to reveal to him. He stayed there, very gently touching, until she relaxed again and sighed. Her eyes opened again; she looked up at him and said his name, very softly.

“Yes?”

“This is so—”

“So?”

“I didn’t know.”

“This is ours to share.” He kissed her shoulder. “This touch, what you feel now. This is what I want to give you. I love you.”

She said nothing in response but closed her eyes and eased herself even more open to his hand. Soames watched her face and saw pleasure flush over it. She said his name again, this time almost pleading.

“May I lie with you now?” he asked.

Her breath caught. “Slowly, please.”

“Slowly,” he promised.

He knelt over her and what came to him in that moment was the oath he had sworn to her that morning: with my body I thee worship. He was worshipping her. Every touch was an act of loving reverence. He helped her lift his nightshirt. She touched his hip timidly and he made an encouraging sound, but the thought of going further was too much for her. There would be other nights.

He shifted and lay over her, not touching her intimately yet, merely kissing her, rubbing her cheek with his, saying soft encouraging things to her, letting her grow used to the weight of his body over hers, to the feeling of such close touch between them. He waited for her to ease again, to part her thighs for him and welcome him further. When she did, he let his body touch hers, just a grazing touch, and she gasped under him.

“All right?”

“I think—yes.”

“Irene, I should like—may I become one with you now?”

She breathed a sound that made him shiver, then said, so softly, “Yes.”

These were the words he needed. She welcomed him. She wanted him. He was accepted. He took himself in hand, gently, and touched her. She gasped. He went slowly, oh so slowly, letting her know what was about to happen, what his body was, what her body would feel like when he joined with it. She made a sound, and then said, “Please.”

He shifted and felt that moment of resistance: he heard her gasp again, and saw her expression change. He stilled himself and waited, watching her face for the sign that she had relaxed again. He wanted to speak but could find no words. They were man and wife now, as of this moment. They were united. They were one. He watched until Irene nodded to him, and he let out a long breath and nodded to her in return. He let himself move again, slowly, letting her feel what it was like, his body against hers, within hers, she surrounding him. She moved under him to wrap herself around him: he was cradled by her now, held close and allowed deeper intimacy. This was different from anything he’d done before, to be so focused on Irene and what she felt, to be watching so closely, so carefully, to be so attentive to her pleasure and not his own. Her eyes closed as he moved and he heard a soft sound from her, the first sound of pleasure. The sound sent a thrill through his heart. It felt so wonderful that he almost wished it could go on forever, this gentle union.

Irene opened her eyes and looked at him. He hoped she could see in his face what he felt, love and pleasure both. It took such strict control over himself to go this slowly but oh it was so much joy to feel her yield to him, to surrender to him, to realise that she was safe and loved with a man who loved her. She said his name, and he could not help the sound that escaped him, which she returned, softly, so softly. He whispered her name in her ear and told her that he loved her, that she was everything to him, that he would love and cherish her until death did them part, that he worshipped her with his body, whatever he could remember from his oath to her, mixed with wordless sounds of longing. He held her close, with his face buried in her neck, kissing her, moving slowly, steadily, listening to her.

Another sound from her, and he began to understand that she needed a little more from him. He shifted up so he could touch her again. Now her breath changed, came faster, and she made the sounds he’d been waiting to hear. Her hand on his shoulder tightened. She tipped her head back and closed her eyes. It was going to happen soon. Her hand gripped his shoulder almost tight enough to hurt, and then—and then—all her tension gathered together to a peak; she reached her moment of pleasure, her face transfigured by it, her soft cries, her body shuddering under his. His own eyes closed and he followed her there, completely undone by her voice, the look on her face, the knowledge that at last, at last, he’d seen on her face the most precious thing he’d ever seen there.

Soames lay cradled in Irene’s arms for a little while, unwilling to move. He kissed her neck and shoulder, her lips, softly. Irene seemed to want him there, for she was stroking his hair, his back, and whispering sweet things to him. At last he eased away from her and lay on his back beside her, breathing. The sweat on his face and in his hair told him how much effort he had spent without realising it.

He looked over at Irene. She reclined on her side smiling at him. She looked like she had after the waltz, perspiration catching the candlelight on her temples, streaked along her throat, her hair every which way. Oh, that smile! He could not help but return it. This smile was the smile of a woman who had been embraced and loved, heavy-lidded, satisfied. He wanted to see it on her face every time they were alone.

So many smiles since that day on the train: the smile she’d given him on the front at Lymington; the smile she gave him whenever he presented her with new music; the mysterious smiles she’d given him so many times in between. This smile was the one he’d keep in his heart.

She spoke. “Soames.”

He touched her hair in response.

“I love you.”

Soames could not move, could not speak. He choked out her name then he buried his face in her neck and the tears came. He could not control it in the least. How long had he waited to hear those three words? She had no idea. She couldn’t possibly. It had been a lifetime of waiting.

“Hush, darling,” Irene said, softly. “I was afraid to say it before. I should have said it, I know now. I’ve loved you the whole time, I think, but I didn’t realise it.”

Soames shook his head at her. None of that mattered. “I love you, too.”

“That’s settled.”

He laughed and wiped his face with the back of his hand. “Come here,” he said, and gently tugged her close so they shared a pillow and could idly kiss again if they wished, which he certainly did wish. His emotion calmed, and he found himself in a glow of happiness he could not contain. Irene’s face said she felt the same. It was almost too much; he wanted to burst from it.

“You are too thin,” Irene said, and he squeezed his eyes shut. He made no reply, but ran a hand over her backside, which was not too thin. It was perfect, in his opinion.

“I can count your ribs.”

“Oh.”

“I watch you, you know. You’re always so careful at dinner. You taste everything, and finish nothing, except perhaps the soup at the start. That you will drink.”

“I hadn’t thought anybody watched that sort of thing.”

“Your mother didn’t notice?”

“She also thinks I’m too thin, but she ascribes it to chasing after you for so long.”

“I am going to make you take me to the finest restaurants, and then I am going to order the most marvellous food for the two of us, and I am going to insist that you eat every bite of it, and that you tell me how wonderful it is, and how much pleasure it gives you.”

“Only if you do the same.”

“Very well.” She touched his lips with her fingers and he kissed them.

He said, “I shall insist that you take me to the concerts you most want to attend. You will allow me to watch you quietly throughout, and then afterwards you will tell me what you felt as you listened. I will tell you what I understood, if I understood anything at all.”

“I shall endure this trial,” Irene said, solemnly.

She sat up and winced, and then looked down at the sheets. She made a face. Soames was not supposed to notice this, he knew, but he did, and he could not help but smile at her and tug her over to a less messy part of the bed. He pulled the coverlet up over their shoulders, and they once again moved close to each other, close enough that they shared a pillow. She had that mysterious soft smile on her face again. Was it mysterious? Was it merely Irene being quietly happy? So long as she kept smiling.

“A long moustache or a short one?” he asked her.

“You shall have to try several kinds of moustache so I can see.”

“Thank you, by the way. That was most thoughtful.”

“You have not found everything yet, I think.”

“Irene, you must not spend—”

“No, you promised not to ask.”

“Yes, but I don’t need—”

“Stop.” She put two fingers against his lips and he sighed.

“I must teach you how to invest,” he muttered, then kissed her fingers.

“That is your job. Mine is to delight you in ways you will not delight yourself.”

“If you insist,” he said, but he was smiling as he said it, and he saw that Irene knew she had won her point.

They kissed again for a little while, gently. Soames tried to put some order back into her hair. Irene closed her eyes, and Soames watched her drift off into sleep. It was so completely unlike that first wedding night. Nothing had been the same. He remembered how he’d behaved, so clumsy and desperate. He’d been unable to tell her how he’d felt, unable to tell her how overwhelmed he’d been. He’d been so focused on himself with her before, so hungry, so impatient. Young fool. It took the patience of the old man to give this woman what she needed, the time to feel herself safe, to feel herself loved.

He’d got this right.

XXXIV. A Paris morning

Irene was snug on Soames’s arm as they walked out of their hotel. The autumn day was crisp and the note in the air had a promise of cold, but not yet the arrival of cold. The leaves were turning, and the wind rattled them on the branches. Men were roasting chestnuts at street corners. He bought some for the two of them, and carried them in a twist of paper in his coat pocket as they crossed into the Tuileries gardens. The ruins of the palace were beside them, exposed to the elements and to Soames’s melancholy contemplation.

Irene was unaffected. “There is so much to do,” she said. “Everything I wished to do before, when I was in Paris.”

Her excitement was infectious. Soames pressed her hand where it rested in the crook of his elbow. “Anything you like.”

“With you to share it. Do you have your notebook?”

“I do.”

“Oh, good. You’ll want to write down what you’re going to hear tonight.”

She dipped her hand into his pocket and stole a chestnut to eat, removing her gloves to peel the dark shell away. She fished out another, peeled it, and gave it to him. It was delicious, and there was something special, to Soames’s mind, about eating one warm while strolling through gardens in the autumn, with the rubble of the Tuileries visible, on their way to somewhere more agreeable. The Louvre was on the other side of the ruined palace, and Soames thought they might spend some time there today, though there was no hurry at all. They could sit on a bench in the October sunshine and eat chestnuts together, and then go and look at paintings.

The future was both known to him and unknown. Would there be a Young James and a little Fleur to call him Papa? He didn’t know. It was possible, even likely. He did have a wife who loved him, who was smiling up at him as she peeled a chestnut for him, and that was an experience he’d never had before. He would need to be ever on watch over himself to stay worthy of her love, but he thought he might manage it.

Soames stripped off his own gloves and peeled a chestnut for Irene. The shells were exactly the colour of her eyes. She laughed at him as he held the nut out to her and then shocked him by eating it out of his hand. Who knew she was like this? Not he. He laughed and reached into his pocket for another chestnut.

-FIN-