With rather a choky feeling he closed the door and went tiptoeing
upstairs. He looked in at a place on the way: H'm! in perfect order of
the eighties, with a sort of yellow oilskin paper on the walls. At the
top of the stairs he hesitated between four doors. Which of them was
Timothy's? And he listened. A sound, as of a child slowly dragging a
hobby-horse about, came to his ears. That must be Timothy! He tapped,
and a door was opened by Smither, very red in the face.
Mr. Timothy was taking his walk, and she had not been able to get him
to attend. If Mr. Soames would come into the back-room, he could see him
through the door.
Soames went into the back-room and stood watching.
The last of the old Forsytes was on his feet, moving with the most
impressive slowness, and an air of perfect concentration on his own
affairs, backward and forward between the foot of his bed and the
window, a distance of some twelve feet. The lower part of his square
face, no longer clean-shaven, was covered with snowy beard clipped as
short as it could be, and his chin looked as broad as his brow where the
hair was also quite white, while nose and cheeks and brow were a good
yellow. One hand held a stout stick, and the other grasped the skirt of
his Jaeger dressing-gown, from under which could be seen his bed-socked
ankles and feet thrust into Jaeger slippers. The expression on his face
was that of a crossed child, intent on something that he has not got.
Each time he turned he stumped the stick, and then dragged it, as if to
show that he could do without it:
"He still looks strong," said Soames under his breath.
"Oh! yes, sir. You should see him take his bath--it's wonderful; he does
enjoy it so."
Those quite loud words gave Soames an insight. Timothy had resumed his
babyhood.
"Does he take any interest in things generally?" he said, also loud.
"Oh I yes, sir; his food and his Will. It's quite a sight to see him
turn it over and over, not to read it, of course; and every now and then
he asks the price of Consols, and I write it on a slate for him--very
large. Of course, I always write the same, what they were when he last
took notice, in 1914. We got the doctor to forbid him to read the paper
when the War broke out. Oh! he did take on about that at first. But
he soon came round, because he knew it tired him; and he's a wonder
to conserve energy as he used to call it when my dear mistresses were
alive, bless their hearts! How he did go on at them about that; they
were always so active, if you remember, Mr. Soames."