It particularly annoyed him, entering that backwater of perfect peace,
to think that a lot of unscrupulous Trusts and Combinations had been
cornering the market in goods of all kinds, and keeping prices at an
artificial height. Such abusers of the individualistic system were the
ruffians who caused all the trouble, and it was some satisfaction to see
them getting into a stew at fast lest the whole thing might come down
with a run--and land them in the soup.
The offices of Cuthcott, Kingson and Forsyte occupied the ground and
first floors of a house on the right-hand side; and, ascending to his
room, Soames thought: 'Time we had a coat of paint.'
His old clerk Gradman was seated, where he always was, at a huge bureau
with countless pigeonholes. Half-the-clerk stood beside him, with a
broker's note recording investment of the proceeds from sale of the
Bryanston Square house, in Roger Forsyte's estate. Soames took it, and
said:
"Vancouver City Stock. H'm. It's down today!"
With a sort of grating ingratiation old Gradman answered him:
"Ye-es; but everything's down, Mr. Soames." And half-the-clerk withdrew.
Soames skewered the document on to a number of other papers and hung up
his hat.
"I want to look at my Will and Marriage Settlement, Gradman."
Old Gradman, moving to the limit of his swivel chair, drew out two
drafts from the bottom lefthand drawer. Recovering his body, he raised
his grizzle-haired face, very red from stooping.
"Copies, Sir."
Soames took them. It struck him suddenly how like Gradman was to the
stout brindled yard dog they had been wont to keep on his chain at
The Shelter, till one day Fleur had come and insisted it should be let
loose, so that it had at once bitten the cook and been destroyed. If you
let Gradman off his chain, would he bite the cook?
Checking this frivolous fancy, Soames unfolded his Marriage Settlement.
He had not looked at it for over eighteen years, not since he remade his
Will when his father died and Fleur was born. He wanted to see whether
the words "during coverture" were in. Yes, they were--odd expression,
when you thought of it, and derived perhaps from horse-breeding!
Interest on fifteen thousand pounds (which he paid her without deducting
income tax) so long as she remained his wife, and afterward during
widowhood "dum casta"--old-fashioned and rather pointed words, put in to
insure the conduct of Fleur's mother. His Will made it up to an annuity
of a thousand under the same conditions. All right! He returned the
copies to Gradman, who took them without looking up, swung the chair,
restored the papers to their drawer, and went on casting up.