Salvation of a Forsyte/Chapter 12
XII
Towards evening, five days later, Swithin, yellow and travel-worn, was ferried in a gondola to Danielli's Hotel. His brother, who was on the steps, looked at him with an apprehensive curiosity.
"Why, it's you!" he mumbled. "So you've got here safe?"
"Safe?" growled Swithin.
James replied, "I thought you wouldn't leave your friends!" Then, with a jerk of suspicion, "You haven't brought your friends?"
"What friends?" growled Swithin.
James changed the subject. "You don't look the thing," he said.
"Really!" muttered Swithin; "what's that to you?"
He appeared at dinner that night, but fell asleep over his coffee. Neither Traquair nor James asked him any further question, nor did they allude to Salzburg; and during the four days which concluded the stay in Venice Swithin went about with his head up, but his eyes half-closed like a dazed man. Only after they had taken ship at Genoa did he show signs of any healthy interest in life, when, finding that a man on board was perpetually strumming, he locked the piano up and pitched the key into the sea.
That winter in London he behaved much as usual, but fits of moroseness would seize on him, during which he was not pleasant to approach.
One evening when he was walking with a friend in Piccadilly, a girl coming from a side-street accosted him in German. Swithin, after staring at her in silence for some seconds, handed her a five-pound note, to the great amazement of his friend; nor could he himself have explained the meaning of this freak of generosity.
Of Rozsi he never heard again....
{[dhr]} This, then, was the substance of what he remembered as he lay ill in bed. Stretching out his hand he pressed the bell. His valet appeared, crossing the room like a cat; a Swede, who had been with Swithin many years; a little man with a dried face and fierce moustache, morbidly sharp nerves, and a queer devotion to his master.
Swithin made a feeble gesture. "Adolf," he said, "I'm very bad."
"Yes, sir!"
"Why do you stand there like a cow?" asked Swithin; "can't you see I'm very bad?"
"Yes, sir!" The valet's face twitched as though it masked the dance of obscure emotions.
"I shall feel better after dinner. What time is it?"
"Five o'clock."
"I thought it was more. The afternoons are very long."
"Yes, sir!"
Swithin sighed, as though he had expected the consolation of denial.
"Very likely I shall have a nap. Bring up hot water at half-past six and shave me before dinner."
The valet moved towards the door. Swithin raised himself.
"What did Mr. James say to you?"
"He said you ought to have another doctor; two doctors, he said, better than one. He said, also, he would look in again on his way 'home.'"
Swithin grunted, "Umph! What else did he say?"
"He said you didn't take care of yourself."
Swithin glared.
"Has anybody else been to see me?"
The valet turned away his eyes. "Mrs. Thomas Forsyte came last Monday fortnight."
"How long have I been ill?"
"Five weeks on Saturday."
"Do you think I'm very bad?"
Adolf's face was covered suddenly with crow's-feet. "You have no business to ask me question like that! I am not paid, sir, to answer question like that."
Swithin said faintly: "You're a peppery fool! Open a bottle of champagne!"
Adolf took a bottle of champagne—from a cupboard and held nippers to it. He fixed his eyes on Swithin. "The doctor said"
"Open the bottle!"
"It is not"
"Open the bottle—or I give you warning."
Adolf removed the cork. He wiped a glass elaborately, filled it, and bore it scrupulously to the bedside. Suddenly twirling his moustaches, he wrung his hands, and burst out: "It is poison."
Swithin grinned faintly. "You foreign fool!" he said. "Get out!"
The valet vanished.
'He forgot himself!' thought Swithin. Slowly he raised the glass, slowly put it back, and sank gasping on his pillows. Almost at once he fell asleep.
He dreamed that he was at his club, sitting after dinner in the crowded smoking-room, with its bright walls and trefoils of light. It was there that he sat every evening, patient, solemn, lonely, and sometimes fell asleep, his square, pale old face nodding to one side. He dreamed that he was gazing at the picture over the fireplace, of an old statesman with a high collar, supremely finished face, and sceptical eyebrows—the picture, smooth, and reticent as sealing-wax, of one who seemed for ever exhaling the narrow wisdom of final judgments. All round him, his fellow members were chattering. Only he himself, the old sick member, was silent. If fellows only knew what it was like to sit by yourself and feel ill all the time! What they were saying he had heard a hundred times. They were talking of investments, of cigars, horses, actresses, machinery. What was that? A foreign patent for cleaning boilers? There was no such thing; boilers couldn't be cleaned, any fool knew that! If an Englishman couldn't clean a boiler, no foreigner could clean one. He appealed to the old statesman's eyes. But for once those eyes seemed hesitating, blurred, wanting in finality. They vanished. In their place were Rozsi's little deep-set eyes, with their wide and far-off look; and as he gazed they seemed to grow bright as steel, and to speak to him. Slowly the whole face grew to be there, floating on the dark background of the picture; it was pink, aloof, unfathomable, enticing, with its fluffy hair and quick lips, just as he had last seen it. "Are you looking for something?" she seemed to say: "I could show you."
"I have everything safe enough," answered Swithin, and in his sleep he groaned.
He felt the touch of fingers on his forehead. 'I'm dreaming,' he thought in his dream.
She had vanished; and far away, from behind the picture, came a sound of footsteps.
Aloud, in his sleep, Swithin muttered: "I've missed it."
Again he heard the rustling of those light footsteps, and close in his ear a sound, like a sob. He awoke; the sob was his own. Great drops of perspiration stood on his forehead. 'What is it?' he thought; 'what have I lost?' Slowly his mind travelled over his investments; he could not think of any single one that was unsafe. What was it, then, that he had lost? Struggling on his pillows, he clutched the wine-glass. His lips touched the wine. 'This isn't the "Heidseck"!' he thought angrily, and before the reality of that displeasure all the dim vision passed away. But as he bent to drink, something snapped, and, with a sigh, Swithin Forsyte died above the bubbles....
When James Forsyte came in again on his way home, the valet, trembling took his hat and stick.
"How's your master?"
"My master is dead, sir!"
"Dead! He can't be! I left him safe an hour ago."
On the bed Swithin's body was doubled like a sack; his hand still grasped the glass.
James Forsyte paused. "Swithin!" he said, and with his hand to his ear he waited for an answer; but none came, and slowly in the glass a last bubble rose and burst.
December 1900.