When those two were gone Jolyon did not return to his painting, for
daylight was failing, but went to the study, craving unconsciously
a revival of that momentary vision of his father sitting in the old
leather chair with his knees crossed and his straight eyes gazing up
from under the dome of his massive brow. Often in this little room,
cosiest in the house, Jolyon would catch a moment of communion with his
father. Not, indeed, that he had definitely any faith in the persistence
of the human spirit--the feeling was not so logical--it was, rather,
an atmospheric impact, like a scent, or one of those strong animistic
impressions from forms, or effects of light, to which those with the
artist's eye are especially prone. Here only--in this little unchanged
room where his father had spent the most of his waking hours--could
be retrieved the feeling that he was not quite gone, that the steady
counsel of that old spirit and the warmth of his masterful lovability
endured.
What would his father be advising now, in this sudden recrudescence of
an old tragedy--what would he say to this menace against her to whom he
had taken such a fancy in the last weeks of his life? 'I must do my best
for her,' thought Jolyon; 'he left her to me in his will. But what is
the best?'
And as if seeking to regain the sapience, the balance and shrewd common
sense of that old Forsyte, he sat down in the ancient chair and
crossed his knees. But he felt a mere shadow sitting there; nor did any
inspiration come, while the fingers of the wind tapped on the darkening
panes of the french-window.
'Go and see her?' he thought, 'or ask her to come down here? What's her
life been? What is it now, I wonder? Beastly to rake up things at this
time of day.' Again the figure of his cousin standing with a hand on a
front door of a fine olive-green leaped out, vivid, like one of those
figures from old-fashioned clocks when the hour strikes; and his words
sounded in Jolyon's ears clearer than any chime: "I manage my own
affairs. I've told you once, I tell you again: We are not at home." The
repugnance he had then felt for Soames--for his flat-cheeked, shaven
face full of spiritual bull-doggedness; for his spare, square,
sleek figure slightly crouched as it were over the bone he could not
digest--came now again, fresh as ever, nay, with an odd increase. 'I
dislike him,' he thought, 'I dislike him to the very roots of me.
And that's lucky; it'll make it easier for me to back his wife.'
Half-artist, and half-Forsyte, Jolyon was constitutionally averse from
what he termed 'ructions'; unless angered, he conformed deeply to that
classic description of the she-dog, 'Er'd ruther run than fight.' A
little smile became settled in his beard. Ironical that Soames should
come down here--to this house, built for himself! How he had gazed and
gaped at this ruin of his past intention; furtively nosing at the walls
and stairway, appraising everything! And intuitively Jolyon thought: 'I
believe the fellow even now would like to be living here. He could never
leave off longing for what he once owned! Well, I must act, somehow or
other; but it's a bore--a great bore.'