And overcome by loneliness he thought: ‘Shan’t wait any longer! They must find their own way back to the hotel — if they mean to come!’ Hailing a cab outside the ground, he said:
“Drive me to the Bayswater Road.” His old aunts had never failed him. To them he had meant an everwelcome visitor. Though they were gone, there, still, was Timothy!
Smither was standing in the open doorway.
“Mr. Soames! I was just taking the air. Cook will be so pleased.”
“How is Mr. Timothy?”
“Not himself at all these last few days, sir; he’s been talking a great deal. Only this morning he was saying: ‘My brother James, he’s getting old.’ His mind wanders, Mr. Soames, and then he will talk of them. He troubles about their investments. The other day he said: ‘There’s my brother Jolyon won’t look at Consols’— he seemed quite down about it. Come in, Mr. Soames, come in! It’s such a pleasant change!”
“Well,” said Soames, “just for a few minutes.”
“No,” murmured Smither in the hall, where the air had the singular freshness of the outside day, “we haven’t been very satisfied with him, not all this week. He’s always been one to leave a titbit to the end; but ever since Monday he’s been eating it first. If you notice a dog, Mr. Soames, at its dinner, it eats the meat first. We’ve always thought it such a good sign of Mr. Timothy at his age to leave it to the last, but now he seems to have lost all his self-control; and, of course, it makes him leave the rest. The doctor doesn’t make anything of it, but”— Smither shook her head —“he seems to think he’s got to eat it first, in case he shouldn’t get to it. That and his talking makes us anxious.”
“Has he said anything important?”
“I shouldn’t like to say that, Mr. Soames; but he’s turned against his Will. He gets quite pettish — and after having had it out every morning for years, it does seem funny. He said the other day: ‘They want my money.’ It gave me such a turn, because, as I said to him, nobody wants his money, I’m sure. And it does seem a pity he should be thinking about money at his time of life. I took my courage in my ‘ands. ‘You know, Mr. Timothy,’ I said, ‘my dear mistress’— that’s Miss Forsyte, Mr. Soames, Miss Ann that trained me —‘SHE never thought about money,’ I said, ‘it was all CHARACTER with her.’ He looked at me, I can’t tell you how funny, and he said quite dry: ‘Nobody wants my character.’ Think of his saying a thing like that! But sometimes he’ll say something as sharp and sensible as anything.”
Soames, who had been staring at an old print by the hat-rack, thinking, ‘That’s got value!’ murmured: “I’ll go up and see him, Smither.”
“Cook’s with him,” answered Smither above her corsets; “she will be pleased to see you.”
He mounted slowly, with the thought: ‘Shan’t care to live to be that age.’
On the second floor, he paused, and tapped. The door was opened, and he saw the round homely face of a woman about sixty.
“Mr. Soames!” she said: “Why! Mr. Soames!”
Soames nodded. “All right, Cook!” and entered.
Timothy was propped up in bed, with his hands joined before his chest, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, where a fly was standing upside down. Soames stood at the foot of the bed, facing him.
“Uncle Timothy,” he said, raising his voice; “Uncle Timothy!”
Timothy’s eyes left the fly, and levelled themselves on his visitor. Soames could see his pale tongue passing over his darkish lips.
“Uncle Timothy,” he said again, “is there anything I can do for you? Is there anything you’d like to say?”
“Ha!” said Timothy.
“I’ve come to look you up and see that everything’s all right.”
Timothy nodded. He seemed trying to get used to the apparition before him.
“Have you got everything you want?”
“No,” said Timothy.
“Can I get you anything?”
“No,” said Timothy.
“I’m Soames, you know; your nephew, Soames Forsyte. Your brother James’ son.”
Timothy nodded.
“I shall be delighted to do anything I can for you.”
Timothy beckoned. Soames went close to him.
“You —” said Timothy in a voice which seemed to have outlived tone, “you tell them all from me — you tell them all —” and his finger tapped on Soames’ arm, “to hold on — hold on — Consols are goin’ up,” and he nodded thrice.
“All right!” said Soames; “I will.”
“Yes,” said Timothy, and, fixing his eyes again on the ceiling, he added: “That fly!”
Strangely moved, Soames looked at the Cook’s pleasant fattish face, all little puckers from staring at fires.
“That’ll do him a world of good, sir,” she said.
A mutter came from Timothy, but he was clearly speaking to himself, and Soames went out with the cook.
“I wish I could make you a pink cream, Mr. Soames, like in old days; you did so relish them. Good-bye, sir; it HAS been a pleasure.”
“Take care of him, Cook, he is old.”
And, shaking her crumpled hand, he went down-stairs. Smither was still taking the air in the doorway.
“What do you think of him, Mr. Soames?”
“H’m!” Soames murmured: “He’s lost touch.”
“Yes,” said Smither, “I was afraid you’d think that, coming fresh out of the world to see him like.”
“Smither,” said Soames, “we’re all indebted to you.”
“Oh, no, Mr. Soames, don’t say that! It’s a pleasure — he’s such a wonderful man.”
“Well, good-bye!” said Soames, and got into his taxi.
‘Going up!’ he thought; ‘going up!’
Reaching the hotel at Knightsbridge he went to their sitting-room, and rang for tea. Neither of them were in. And again that sense of loneliness came over him. These hotels! What monstrous great places they were now! He could remember when there was nothing bigger than Long’s or Brown’s, Morley’s or the Tavistock, and the heads that were shaken over the Langham and the Grand. Hotels and Clubs — Clubs and Hotels; no end to them now! And Soames, who had just been watching at Lord’s a miracle of tradition and continuity, fell into reverie over the changes in that London where he had been born five-and-sixty years before. Whether Consols were going up or not, London had become a terrific property. No such property in the world, unless it were New York! There was a lot of hysteria in the papers nowadays; but any one who, like himself, could remember London sixty years ago, and see it now, realised the fecundity and elasticity of wealth. They had only to keep their heads, and go at it steadily. Why! he remembered cobble-stones, and stinking straw on the floor of your cab. And old Timothy — what could HE not tell them, if he had kept his memory! Things were unsettled, people in a funk or in a hurry, but here were London and the Thames, and out there the British Empire, and the ends of the earth. “Consols are goin’ up!” He shouldn’t be a bit surprised. It was the breed that counted. And all that was bull-dogged in Soames stared for a moment out of his grey eyes, till diverted by the print of a Victorian picture on the walls. The hotel had bought three dozen of that little lot! The old hunting or “Rake’s Progress” prints in the old inns were worth looking at — but this sentimental stuff — well, Victorianism had gone! “Tell them to hold on!” old Timothy had said. But to what were they to hold on in this modern welter of the “democratic principle”? Why, even privacy was threatened! And at the thought that privacy might perish, Soames pushed back his teacup and went to the window. Fancy owning no more of Nature than the crowd out there owned of the flowers and trees and waters of Hyde Park! No, no! Private possession underlay everything worth having. The world had slipped its sanity a bit, as dogs now and again at full moon slipped theirs and went off for a night’s rabbiting; but the world, like the dog, knew where its bread was buttered and its bed warm, and would come back sure enough to the only home worth having — to private ownership. The world was in its second childhood for the moment, like old Timothy — eating its titbit first!