"And carry five," said Gradman to himself. "I forgot--Mr. Timothy's in
Consols; we shan't get more than two per cent. with this income tax. To
be on the safe side, say eight millions. Still, that's a pretty penny."
Soames rose and handed him the Will. "You're going into the City. Take
care of that, and do what's necessary. Advertise; but there are no
debts. When's the sale?"
"Tuesday week," said Gradman. "Life or lives in bein' and twenty-one
years afterward--it's a long way off. But I'm glad he's left it in the
family...."
The sale--not at Jobson's, in view of the Victorian nature of the
effects--was far more freely attended than the funeral, though not by
Cook and Smither, for Soames had taken it on himself to give them
their heart's desires. Winifred was present, Euphemia, and Francie,
and Eustace had come in his car. The miniatures, Barbizons, and J. R.
drawings had been bought in by Soames; and relics of no marketable value
were set aside in an off-room for members of the family who cared
to have mementoes. These were the only restrictions upon bidding
characterised by an almost tragic languor. Not one piece of furniture,
no picture or porcelain figure appealed to modern taste. The humming
birds had fallen like autumn leaves when taken from where they had not
hummed for sixty years. It was painful to Soames to see the chairs his
aunts had sat on, the little grand piano they had practically never
played, the books whose outsides they had gazed at, the china they had
dusted, the curtains they had drawn, the hearth-rug which had warmed
their feet; above all, the beds they had lain and died in--sold to
little dealers, and the housewives of Fulham. And yet--what could one
do? Buy them and stick them in a lumber-room? No; they had to go the way
of all flesh and furniture, and be worn out. But when they put up Aunt
Ann's sofa and were going to knock it down for thirty shillings, he
cried out, suddenly: "Five pounds!" The sensation was considerable, and
the sofa his.
When that little sale was over in the fusty saleroom, and those
Victorian ashes scattered, he went out into the misty October sunshine
feeling as if cosiness had died out of the world, and the board "To Let"
was up, indeed. Revolutions on the horizon; Fleur in Spain; no comfort
in Annette; no Timothy's on the Bayswater Road. In the irritable
desolation of his soul he went into the Goupenor Gallery. That chap
Jolyon's watercolours were on view there. He went in to look down his
nose at them--it might give him some faint satisfaction. The news had
trickled through from June to Val's wife, from her to Val, from Val to
his mother, from her to Soames, that the house--the fatal house at
Robin Hill--was for sale, and Irene going to join her boy out in British
Columbia, or some such place. For one wild moment the thought had come
to Soames: 'Why shouldn't I buy it back? I meant it for my!' No sooner
come than gone. Too lugubrious a triumph; with too many humiliating
memories for himself and Fleur. She would never live there after what
had happened. No, the place must go its way to some peer or profiteer.
It had been a bone of contention from the first, the shell of the feud;
and with the woman gone, it was an empty shell. "For Sale or To Let."
With his mind's eye he could see that board raised high above the ivied
wall which he had built.