This continual strife to limit Nicholas was of course but vaguely suspected on “Forsyte ‘Change” and cannot therefore be recorded with any precision; but, in spite of all the instinctive camouflage lavished on the matter, there did come into the family consciousness news of a phase of it worth commemorating for the light it throws on the change in British institutions and the imperfection of human judgments. It began with a letter from Mrs. Nicholas dated: “June the twenty-fourth 1864: The Chine Hotel, Bournemouth” which ran thus:
“MY DEAR HUSBAND,—
“I have long wished to take a step which I fear will cause you some anxiety and cannot fail to have roused your disapproval. I came to this nice hotel yesterday in this very charming spot with the intention of remaining here for some weeks. The sea air is delicious, and there are several quite nice people in the hotel. Please send me some of my money. Indeed, I think it would be nice if in future you paid me a regular allowance, out of the money that my dear father left me. Give my love to the dear children.
“Your affectionate wife,
“FANNY.”
When Nicholas received this letter he was already in a state of considerable confusion—not to say anxiety—and he read it with a stupor unbecoming to the cleverest man in London. That a wife should have gone off by herself without giving notice had taken him—as he would not have expressed to anybody else—“flat aback.” That, on the top of it, she should ask him to send her money and make her a regular allowance seemed to him outrageous. He went to bed and passed a wretched night. What was the woman about? The more he did not sleep the more he was inclined to think that he had never heard of such a thing. Next day he wrote in reply:
“MY DEAR FANNY,—
“I have received your letter. Your going off like that gave me a pretty surprise. If you choose to take things into your own hands, you must incur the consequences. I shall certainly not send you any money; and the best thing you can do is to come back home at once. As to a regular allowance what on earth do you want it for? I give you everything you can reasonably require. I suppose you have been listening to some clap-trap about married women’s property. The sooner you rid your mind of any of these new-fangled notions the better it will be for both of us, and for the children.
“Now for goodness sake come to your senses, and come home.
“Your affectionate husband,
“NICHOLAS FORSYTE.”
He went to a Board meeting irritably convinced that he had clinched the matter and that she would be home tomorrow. She was not, and the day after he received a second letter.
“MY DEAR HUSBAND,—
“I am sorry that you do not see the reasonableness of my conduct and of my requests. I shall therefore continue to stay on here. There is a very nice solicitor in the hotel, and he advises me that you will be liable for any debts I may have to incur, which I think, is quite reasonable. Of course, I did not tell him that I was speaking of myself. I hope your indigestion is better. Give my love to the dear children.
“Your affectionate wife,
“FANNY.”
Nicholas put the letter down with the remark: “Well, for obstinacy give me a woman!” What on earth had come to her! Debts, indeed! Fiddlesticks! He was none the less “in a regular stew.” To have his attention on important matters disturbed in this way was scandalous. Why! if it went on he would have to go down and bring her back! And it did go on. He answered the letter after waiting another day to see if she would come to her senses.
“MY DEAR WIFE,—
“Will you please understand that I expect you to come back, otherwise I shall be compelled to come down and fetch you. I am surprised and grieved at your conduct, especially at this moment when I have important business on hand. Now don’t be silly, but come home like a good girl.
“Your affectionate husband,
“NICHOLAS FORSYTE.”
To this letter he received no answer. Three days passed during which he experienced every kind of mental and some physical discomfort. He even began to have dark thoughts about the nice solicitor. Fanny was only thirty-seven, and with a woman you never knew. At last, thoroughly alarmed, he cried off from a meeting of the Central Canal Corporation, and went down to Bournemouth. At the hotel they told him that Mrs. Forsyte had left two days before. No! They had no address. The callous indifference to his feelings disclosed by this conduct upset Nicholas completely. That he should have to confront an almost grinning hotel manager and betray the fact that his own wife was acting independently was—was monstrous! He did not even ask if she had paid her bill; but his knowledge of hotels—he was on the Board of one—told him that she had, or they would have presented him with it. Where was she getting money from—throwing away her jewellery he shouldn’t be surprised. He returned to London—there was nothing else to do. The next day he received a letter from her to say that she had moved on to Weymouth, but it was not as nice as she expected and she should not stay. She did not say where she was going. ‘H’m!’ thought Nicholas: ‘Playing cat and mouse with me, is she?’ And he went sullenly into the City.
Now a man may make the best resolutions about his wife, such as: “I’ll have nothing more to do with her,” or: “If she thinks she can tire me out she’s very much mistaken.” But when, like Nicholas, he has given her six children—three of them at home; when, like Nicholas, he has a reputation for always having had his own way, and for being an irreproachable householder, it was exceptionally galling not even to be able to say with truth that he knew where his wife was, to have to avoid Forsyte ‘Change as if it were the devil—as perhaps it was—and to sneak about his own house feeling that his children and his servants knew all about everything. He began to suffer severely from that kind of dyspepsia which arises from the thwarting of one’s will, one’s instincts, and one’s self-esteem. He often thought: ‘If she could see me, she wouldn’t go on behaving like this.’
At the end of a fortnight he received from her a letter dated from an hotel at Cheltenham which, though it seemed to show a certain softening, mentioned a nice doctor who had given her some very kind advice—Doctors, indeed, as if he didn’t know them!—and ended with the words: “I trust that you are now prepared, my dear husband, to make me a fixed and regular allowance, of course out of my own money. I think—do you not agree?—that £500 a year is the least amount that would be proper. I feel that if I had that I could come home again. In the meantime I have parted with my emerald pendant. Give my love to the dear children. Your affectionate wife, Fanny.”