Part 1, Chapter 11 of Inchansary. For more information or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org. Dining by Andy Minter. The Foresight Saga. Two. Inchansary. By John Gawlsworthy. Part 2, Chapter 11. And Visits the Past. On a Tuesday evening, after dining at his club, Soames set out to do what required more courage and perhaps less delicacy than anything he had yet undertaken in his life, save perhaps his birth and one other action, he chose the evening indeed partly because Irene was more likely to be in, but mainly because he had failed to find sufficient resolution by daylight, had needed wine to give him extra daring. He left his handsome on the embankment, and walked up to the old church, uncertain of the block of flats where he knew she lived. He found it hiding behind a much larger mansion, and having read the name Mrs. Irene Heron, Heron for sooth, her maiden name, so she used that again, did she? He stepped back into the road to look up at the windows of the first floor. Light was coming through in the corner flat, and he could hear a piano being played. He had never had a love of music, had secretly borne it a grudge in the old days when so often she had turned to her piano, making of it a refuge place into which she knew he could not enter. Repulse, the long repulse at first restrained and secret, at last open. Bitter memory came with that sound. It must be she playing, and thus almost assured of seeing her. He stood more undecided than ever. Shivers of anticipation ran through him. His tongue felt dry, his heart beat fast. I have no cause to be afraid, he thought. And then the lawyer stirred within him. Was he doing a foolish thing? Or he not to have arranged a formal meeting in the presence of her trustee? No, not before that fellow Jolian who sympathized with her, never. He crossed back into the doorway, and slowly, to keep down the beating of his heart, mounted the single flight of stairs and rang the bell. When the door was opened to him, his sensations were regulated by the scent which came, that perfume, from a way back in the past, bringing muffled remembrance, fragrance of a drawing-room he used to enter, of a house he used to own, perfume of dried rose-leaves and honey. Say, Mr. Forsight, he said, your mistress will see me, I know. He had thought this out. She would think it was Jolian. When the maid was gone, and he was alone in the tiny hall, where the light was dim from one pearly shaded sconce, and the walls, carpet, everything was silvery, making the walled in space all ghostly. He could only think ridiculously. Shall I go in with my overcoat on, or take it off? The music ceased. The maid said from the doorway, Will you walk in, sir? Soames walked in. He noted mechanically that all was still silvery, and that the upright piano was of satin wood. She had risen, and stood recoiled against it. Her hand, placed on the keys as if groping for support, had struck a sudden discord, and held for a moment, and released. The light from the shaded piano-candle fell on her neck, leaving her face rather in shadow.  He did not remember ever having seen her in black, and the thought passed through him. She dresses even when she's alone. You!" he heard her whisper. Many times Soames had rehearsed this scene in fancy. Rehearsal served him not at all. He simply could not speak. He had never thought that the sight of this woman, whom he had once so passionately desired, so completely owned, and whom he had not seen for twelve years, could affect him in this way. He had imagined himself speaking and acting half as a man of business, half as judge. And now it was if he were in the presence not of a mere woman, and herring wife, but of some force, subtle and elusive as atmosphere itself, within him and outside. A kind of defensive irony welled up in him. Yes, it's a queer visit. I hope you're well. Thank you. Will you sit down? She had moved away from the piano and gone over to a window-seat, sinking onto it, with her hands clasped in her lap. Light fell on her there, so that Soames could see her face, eyes, hair, strangely as he remembered them, strangely beautiful. He sat down on the edge of a sat-in-wood chair, upholstered with silver-covered stuff, close to where he was standing. You have not changed," he said. No, what have you come for? To discuss things. I have heard what you want from your cousin. Well, I am willing I have always been. The sound of her voice, reserved and close, the sight of her figure, watchfully poised, defensive, was helping him now, a thousand memories of her, ever on the watch against him, stirred, and— Perhaps you will be good enough, then, to give me information on which I can act. The law must be complied with. I have none to give you that you don't know of. Twelve years. Do you suppose I can believe that? I don't suppose you will believe anything I say, but it's the truth. Soames looked at her hard. He had said that she had not changed. Now he perceived that she had, not in face, except that it was more beautiful, not in form, except that it was a little fuller. No. She had changed spiritually. There was more of her, as it were, something of activity and daring, where there had been sheer passive resistance. Ah, he thought, that's her independent income. Confound, Uncle Jolian. I suppose you're comfortably off now, he said. Thank you. Yes. Why didn't you let me provide for you? I would have, in spite of everything. A faint smile came on her lips, but she did not answer. You're still my wife, said Soames. Why he said that, what he meant by it, he knew neither when he spoke nor after. It was a truism, almost preposterous, but its effect was startling. She rose from the window-seat and stood for a moment perfectly still, looking at him. He could see her bosom heaving. Then she turned to the window and threw it open. Why do that, he said sharply. You'll catch cold in that dress, I'm not dangerous. And he uttered a little sad laugh. She echoed it, faintly, bitterly. It was habit, rather odd habit, said Soames as bitterly.  She shut it and sat down again. She had developed power, this woman, this wife of his. He felt it issuing from her as she sat there, in a sort of armour. And almost unconsciously, he rose and moved nearer. He wanted to see the expression on her face. Her eyes met his, unflinching. Heavens, how clear they were!  And how white her shoulders! Funny sensation this, he ought to hate her. You had better tell me, he said. It's to your advantage to be free as well as to mine. That old matter is too old. I have told you.  Nobody? Nobody.  Stung by that retort, Soames moved towards the piano and back to the hearth, to and fro, as he had been want in the old days in their drawing-room, when his feelings were too much for him. That won't do, he said. You deserted me in common justice, it's for you! He saw her shrug those white shoulders, heard her murmur, Yes. Why didn't you divorce me then? Should I have cared? He stopped and looked at her intently with a sort of curiosity. What on earth did she do with herself if she rarely lived quite alone? And why had he not divorced her? The old feeling that she had never understood him, never done him justice, bit him while he stared at her. Why couldn't you have made me a good wife, he said? Yes, it was a crime to marry you. I have paid for it. You will find some way, perhaps. You needn't mind by name, I've known to lose. Now I think you'd better go. A sense of defeat, of being defrauded of his self-justification and of something else beyond power of explanation to himself, beset soams like the breath of a cold fog. Mechanically he reached up, took from the mantel-shelf a little china-bowl, reversed it, and said, Loistoft, where did you get this? I bought its fellow at Jobson's, and visited by the sudden memory of how, those many years ago, he and she had bought china together, he remained staring at the little bowl as if it contained all the past. Her voice roused him. Take it, I don't want it. Soams put it back on the shelf. Will you shake hands, he said. A faint smile curved her lips. She held out her hand, it was cold to his rather feverish touch. She's made of ice, he thought. She was always made of ice. But even as that thought darted through him, his senses were assailed by the perfume of her dress and body, as though the warmth within her, which had never been for him, was struggling to show its presence. And he turned on his heel. He walked out and away, as if someone with a whip were after him, not even looking for a cab, glad of the empty embankment and the cold river, and the thick-strowed shadows of the plain tree-leaves, confused, flurried, sore at heart and vaguely disturbed, as though he had made some deep mistake whose consequences he could not foresee. And the fantastic thought suddenly assailed him, if, instead of, I think you had better go, she had said, I think you had better stay. What should he have felt? What would he have done? That cursed attraction of hers was there for him even now, after all these years of estrangement and bitter thoughts. It was there, ready to mount to his head at a sign, a touch. I was a fool to go, he muttered. I've advanced nothing. Who could imagine? I never thought. Memory, flown back to the first years of his marriage, played him torturing tricks. She had not deserved to keep her beauty. The beauty he had owned and known so well, and a kind of bitterness at the tenacity of his own admiration welled up in him. Most men would have hated the sight of her as she had deserved. She had spoiled his life, wounded his pride to death, defrauded him of a son, and yet the mere sight of her, cold and resisting as ever, had this power to upset him utterly. It was some damned magnetism she had. And no wonder, if, as she asserted, she had lived untouched these last twelve years. So Bessini, cursed by his memory, had lived on all this time with her. Somes could not tell whether he was glad of that knowledge or no. Nearing his club, at last he stopped to buy a paper. A headline ran, Bors reported to repudiate suzerainty. Suzerainty. Just like her, he thought, she always did. Suzerainty. I still have it by rights. She must be awfully lonely in that wretched little flat. End of Part 1, Chapter 11. Part 1, Chapter 12 of Enchantsery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. The Foresight Saga II Enchantsery by John Galsworthy. Part 1, Chapter 12. On Foresight Change Somes belonged to two clubs, the connoisseurs which he put on his cards and seldom visited, and the remove, which he did not put on his cards and frequented. He had joined this liberal institution five years ago, having made sure that its members were now nearly all sound conservatives in heart and pocket if not in principle. Uncle Nicholas had put him up. The fine reading room was decorated in the Adam's style. On entering that evening he glanced at the tape for any news about the Transvaal and noted that consuls were down seven sixteenths since the morning. He was turning away to seek the reading room when a voice behind him said, Well, Somes, that went off all right. It was Uncle Nicholas and a frock coat and his special cutaway collar when the black tie passed through a ring. Heavens, how young and dapper he looked at eighty-two. I think Roger had been pleased, his uncle went on. The thing was very well done. Blackleys? I'll make a note of them. Buxton's done me no good. These boars are upsetting me. That fellow Chamberlain's driving the country into war. What do you think? Bound to come, murmured Somes. Nicholas passed his hand over his thin clean-shaven cheeks, very rosy after his summer cure. A slight pout had gathered on his lips. This business had revived all his liberal principles. I mistrust that chap. He's a stormy petrol. House property will go down if there's war. You'll have trouble with Roger's estate.  He was an opinionated beggar. There was a pair of you, thought Somes. But he never argued with an uncle, in that way preserving their opinion of him as a long-headed chap and the legal care of their property. They tell me at Timothy's, said Nicholas, lowering his voice, that Darty has gone off at last. That'll be relief to your father. He was a rotten egg. Again, Somes nodded. If there was a subject on which the four sides really agreed, it was the character of Montague Darty. You take care, said Nicholas, or he'll turn up again. But had better have the tooth out, I should say. No use preserving what's gone bad. Somes looked at him sideways. His nerves, exacerbated by the interview he had just come through, disposed him to see a personal illusion in those words. I'm advising her, he said shortly. Well, said Nicholas, the brome's waiting. I must get home. I'm very poorly. Remember me to your father. And having thus reconsecrated the ties of blood, he passed down the steps at his youthful gate and was wrapped into his fur coat by the junior porter. I've never known Uncle Nicholas other than very poorly mused Somes, or seen him look other than everlasting. What a family. Judging by him, I've got thirty-eight years of health before me, while I'm not going to waste them. And going over to a mirror, he stood looking at his face. Just for a line or two, and three or four gray hairs and his little dark mustache, had he aged any more than Irene? The prime of life, he and she in the very prime of life, and a fantastic thought shot into his mind. Absurd, idiotic. But again it came, and genuinely alarmed by the recurrence as one is by the second fit of shivering which presages a feverish cold, he sat down on the weighing machine. Eleven stoned, he had not varied two pounds in twenty years. What age was she? Nearly thirty-seven, not too old to have a child, not at all, thirty-seven on the ninth of next month. He remembered her birthday well, he had always observed it religiously, even that last birthday so soon before she left him, when he was almost certain she was faithless. Four birthdays in his house. He had looked forward to them because his gifts had meant a semblance of gratitude, a certain attempt that warmth. Except indeed that last birthday which attempted him to be too religious, and he shied away in thought. Memory heaps dead leaves on corpse-like deeds from under which they do but vaguely offend the sense. And then he thought suddenly, I could send her a present for her birthday. After all were Christians, couldn't we join up again? And he uttered a deep sigh sitting there, Annette. Ah, but between him and Annette was the need for that wretched divorce suit. And how? A man can always work these things if he'll take it on himself, Jolyon had said. But why should he take the scandal on himself with his whole career as a pillar of the law at stake? It was not fair. It was quixotic. Twelve years separation in which he had taken no steps to free himself put out of court the possibility of using her conduct with Massini as a ground for divorcing her. By doing nothing to secure relief he had acquiesced even if the evidence could now be gathered which was more than doubtful. Besides, his own pride would never let him use that old incident. He'd suffered from it too much. No. Nothing but fresh misconduct on her part, but she had denied it. And almost he had believed her. Hung up, utterly hung up. He rose from the scooped out red velvet seat with a feeling of constriction about his vitals. He would never sleep with this going on in him. And taking coat and hat again he went out, moving eastward. In Trafalgar Square he became aware of some special commotion traveling towards him out of the mouth of the Strand. It materialized in newspaper men calling out so loudly that no words whatever could be heard. He stopped to listen and one came by. Paper, special, ultimatum by Kruger, declaration of war. Some spot the paper. There it was in the stop press. His first thought was, the Boers are committing suicide. His second, is there anything still I ought to sell? If so, he had missed the chance. There would certainly be a slump in the city tomorrow. He swallowed this thought with a nod of defiance. That ultimatum was insolent. Sooner than let it pass he was prepared to lose money. They wanted a lesson and they would get it. But it would take three months at least to bring them to heel. There weren't the troops out there, always behind time, the government, confound those newspaper rats. What was the use of waking everybody up? Breakfast tomorrow was quite soon enough. And he thought with alarm of his father. They would cry it down Park Lane. Hailing a handsome he got in and told the man to drive there. James and Emily had just gone up to bed and after communicating the news to Warmson songs prepared to follow. He paused by after thought to say, What do you think of it, Warmson? The butler seized passing a hat brush over the silk hat Somes had taken off and inclining his face a little forward, said in a low voice. Well, sir, they haven't a chance, of course, but I'm told they're very good shots. I've got a son in the innest killings. You, Warmson? Well, I didn't know you were married. No, sir, I don't talk of it. I expect he'll be going out. The slighter shock Somes had felt on discovering that he knew so little of one whom he thought he knew so well was lost in the slight shock of discovering that the war might touch one personally. Born in the year of the Crimean War he had only come to consciousness by the time the Indian mutiny was over. Since then the many little wars of the British Empire had been entirely professional, quite unconnected with the foresight and all they stood for in the body politic. This war would surely be no exception. But his mind ran hastily over his family. Two of the hymns he had heard were in some yeomanry or other. It had always been a pleasant thought. There was a certain distinction about the yeomanry. They wore, or used to wear, a blue uniform with silver about it and rode horses. And Archibald, he remembered, had once on a time joined the militia, but had given it up because his father, Nicholas, had made such a fuss about his wasting his time peacocking about in a uniform. Only he had heard somewhere that young Nicholas's eldest, the very young Nicholas, had become a volunteer. No thought some was mounting the stairs slowly. There's nothing in that. He stood on the landing outside his parents' bed and dressing rooms, debating whether or not to put his nose in and say a reassuring word. Opening the landing window he listened. The rumble from Piccadilly was all the sound he heard, and with the thought, if these motorcars increase it will affect house property. He was about to pass on up to the room always kept ready for him when he heard, distant as yet, the horse-rushing call of the news vendor. There it was, and coming past the house. He knocked on his mother's door and went in. His father was sitting up in bed with his ears pricked under the white hair which Emily kept so beautifully cut. He looked pink and extraordinarily clean in his setting of white sheet and pillow, out of which the points of his high, thin, night-gown shoulders emerged in small peaks. His eyes alone, gray and distrustful under their withered lids, were moving from the window to Emily, who in a wrapper was walking up and down, squeezing a rubber ball attached to a scent bottle. The room reeked faintly of the odic alone she was spraying. All right, said Sones, it's not a fire. The boars have declared war, that's all. Emily stopped her spraying. Oh, was all she said, and looked at James. Sones, too, looked at his father. He was taking it differently from their expectation, as if some thought strange to them were working in him. Hmm, he muttered suddenly. I shan't live to see the end of this. Nonsense, James, it'll be over by Christmas. What do you know about it? James answered her with asperity. It's a pretty mess at this time of night, too. He lapsed into silence, and his wife and son, as if hypnotized, waited for him to say, I can't tell, I don't know. I knew how it would be. But he did not. The gray eyes shifted, evidently seeing nothing in the room, then movement occurred under the bedclothes, and the knees were drawn up suddenly to a great height. They ought to send out Roberts. It all comes from that fellow Gladstone and his Majuba. The two listeners noted something beyond the usual in his voice, something of real anxiety. It was as if he had said, I shall never see the old country peaceful and safe again. I shall have to die before I know she's won. And in spite of the feeling that James must not be encouraged to be fussy, they were touched. Roberts went up to the bedside and stroked his father's hand, which had emerged from under the bedclothes, long and wrinkled with veins. Mark my words, said James. Consoles will go to par. For all I know, Val may go in enlist. Oh, come, James, cried Emily, you talk as if there were danger. Her comfortable voice seemed to soothe James for once. Well, he muttered, I told you how it would be. I don't know. I'm sure nobody tells me anything. Are you sleeping here, my boy? The crisis was past. He would now compose himself to his normal degree of anxiety, and assuring his father that he was sleeping in the house, some was pressed his hand and went up to his room. The following afternoon witnessed the greatest crowd Timothy's had known for many a year. On national occasions such as this it was indeed almost impossible to avoid going there. Not that there was any danger or rather only just enough to make it necessary to assure each other that there was none. Nicholas was there early. He had seen Somes the night before. Somes had said it was bound to come. This old Kruger was in his dotage, why he must be seventy-five if he was a day. Nicholas was eighty-two. What did Timothy said? He had had a fit after Majuba. These bores were a grasping lot. The dark-haired Francie, who had arrived on his heels, with the contradictious touch which became the free spirit of the daughter of Roger, chimed in. Catalan pot, Uncle Nicholas. What price the white-landers? What price indeed? A new expression and believed to be due to her brother George. Aunt Julie thought Francie ought not to say such a thing. Here Mrs. McCander's boy, Charlie McCander, was one and no one could call him grasping. At this Francie uttered one of her moths, scandalizing and so frequently repeated. Well, his father's a scotchman and his mother's a cat. Aunt Julie covered her ears, too late but Aunt Hester smiled, as for Nicholas he pouted, witticism of which he was not the author was hardly to his taste. Just then Mary and Tweedamen arrived, followed almost immediately by young Nicholas. On seeing his son, Nicholas rose. While I must be going, he said, Nick here will tell you what'll win the race. And with this hit at his eldest, who is a pillar of accountancy and director of an insurance company, was no more addicted to sport than his father had ever been, he departed. Dear Nicholas, what race was that? Or was it only one of his jokes? He was a wonderful man for his age. How many lumps would dear Mary and take? And how were Giles and Jesse? Aunt Julie, suppose their yeomanry would be very busy now, guarding the coast, though of course the boars had no ships. But one never knew what the French might do if they had the chance, especially since that dreadful fashota scare, which had upset Timothy so terribly that he had made no investments for months afterwards. It was the ingratitude of the boars that was so dreadful after everything had been done for them. Dr. Jameson imprisoned, and he was so nice, Mrs. McAnder had always said. And Sir Alfred Milner sent out to talk to them such a clever man. She didn't know what they wanted. But at this moment occurred one of those sensations so precious at Timothy's, which great occasions sometimes bring forth. Miss June Forsyte. Aunt Julie and Hester were on their feet at once, trembling from smothered resentment and old affection bubbling up in pride at the return of the prodigal June. Well, this was a surprise. Dear June, after all these years, and how well she was looking, not changed at all. It was almost on their lips to add. And how is your dear grandfather? Forgetting in that giddy moment that poor dear Julie and have been in his grave for seven years now. Ever the most courageous and downright of all the Forsytes, June with her decided chin and her spirited eyes and her hair like flame, sat down, slight and short, on a gilt chair with a beadwork seat for all the world as if 10 years had not elapsed since she had been to see them. 10 years of travel and independence and devotion to lame ducks. Those ducks of late had been all definitely painters, etchers, or sculptors so that her impatience with the Forsytes and their hopelessly inartistic outlook had become intense. Indeed she had almost ceased to believe that her family existed and looked round her now with a sort of challenging directness which brought exquisite discomfort to the room full. She had not expected to meet any of them but the poor old things, and why she had come to see them she hardly knew, except that while on her way from Oxford Street to a studio in Latimer Road, she had suddenly remembered them with compunction as two long neglected old lame ducks. Aunt Julie broke the hush again. We've just been saying, dear, how dreadful it is about these boars, and what an impudent thing of that old Kruger. Impudent, said June, I think he's quite right. What business have we to meddle with them? If he turned out all those Richard Oightlanders, it would serve them right. They're only after money. The silence of sensation was broken by Francie, saying, what, are you a pro boar? Undoubtedly the first use of that expression. Well, why can't we leave them alone? said June. Just as in the open doorway the maid said, Mr. Somme's foresight. Sensation on sensation. Greeting was almost held up by curiosity to see how June and he would take this encounter, for it was shrewdly suspected, if not quite known, that they had not met since that old and lamentable affair of her fiancee Baseni with Somme's wife. They were seen to just touch each other's hands and look each at the other's left eye only. Aunt Julie came at once to the rescue. Dear, June is so original. Fancy, Somme's, she thinks the boars are not to blame. They only want their independence, said June, and why shouldn't they have it? Because, answered Somme's, with his smile a little on one side, they happen to have agreed to our suzerainty. Suzerainty, repeated June scornfully, we shouldn't like anyone's suzerainty over us. They got advantages in payment, replied Somme's. A contract is a contract. Contracts are not always just, fumed out, June, and when they're not, they ought to be broken. The boars are much the weaker we could afford to be generous. Somme's sniffed. That's mere sentiment, he said. Aunt Hester, to whom nothing was more awful than any kind of disagreement, here leaned forward and remarked decisively. What lovely weather it has been for the time of year. But June was not to be diverted. I don't know why sentiment should be sneered at. It's the best thing in the world. She looked defiantly round, and Aunt Julie had to intervene again. Have you bought any pictures lately, Somme's? Her incomparable instinct for the wrong subject had not failed her. Somme's flushed. To disclose the name of his latest purchases would be like walking into the jaws of disdain. For somehow they all knew of June's predilection for genius not yet on its legs, and her contempt for success unless she had had a finger in securing it. One or two, he muttered. But June's face had changed. The foresight within her was seeing its chance. Why should not Somme's buy some of the pictures of Eric Cobly, her last lame duck, and she promptly opened her attack? Did Somme's know his work? It was so wonderful. He was the coming man. Oh, yes, Somme's knew his work. It was, in his view, splashy and would never get hold of the public. June blazed up. Of course it won't. That's the last thing one would wish for. I thought you were a connoisseur, not a picture dealer. Of course Somme's is a connoisseur, and Julie said hastily. He has wonderful taste. He can always tell beforehand what's going to be successful. Oh, gasped June, and sprang up from the bead-covered chair. I hate that standard of success. Why can't people buy things because they like them? You mean, said Francie, because you like them. And in the slight pause, young Nicholas was heard saying gently that Violet, his fourth, was taking lessons in pastel. He didn't know if they were any use. Well, goodbye, auntie, said June. I must get on. And kissing her aunts, she looked defiantly around the room, said goodbye again, and went. A breeze seemed to pass out with her as if everyone had sighed. The third sensation came before anyone had time to speak. Mr. James Foresight. James came in using a stick slightly, and wrapped in a fur coat which gave him a fictitious bulk. Everyone stood up. James was so old, and he had not been at Timothy's for nearly two years. It's hot in here, he said. Somme divested him of his coat, and as he did so he could not help admiring the glossy way his father was churned out. James sat down, all knees, elbows, his frock coat, and long white whiskers. What's the meaning of that, he said? Though there was no apparent sense in his words, they all knew that he was referring to June. His eyes searched his son's face. I thought I'd come and see for myself. What if they answered Kruger? Somme's took out an evening paper and read the headline. Instant action by our government, state of war existing. Ah, said James, and sighed. I was afraid they'd cut and run like old Gladstone. We shall finish with them this time. All stared at him. James, always fussy, nervous, anxious. James, with his continual, I told you how it would be, and his pessimism and his cautious investments. There was something uncanny about such resolution in this, the oldest living foresight. Where as Timothy, said James, he ought to pay attention to this. Aunt Julie said she didn't know. Timothy had not said much at lunch today. Aunt Hester rose and threaded her way out of the room, and Francie said rather maliciously. The boars are a hard nut to crack, Uncle James. Hmm, muttered James, where do you get your information? Nobody tells me. Young Nicholas remarked in his mild voice that Nick, his eldest, was now going to drill regularly. Ah, muttered James, and stared before him. His thoughts were on vow. He's got to look after his mother, he said. He's got no time for drilling in that with that father of his. This cryptic saying produced silence until he spoke again. What did June want here? And his eyes rested with suspicion on all of them in turn. Her father's a rich man now. The conversation turned on Jolien, and when he had been seen last, it was supposed that he went abroad and saw all sorts of people now that his wife was dead. His watercolors were on the line, and he was a successful man. Francie went so far as to say, I should like to see him again. He was rather a deer. Aunt Julie recalled how he had gone to sleep on the sofa one day, where James was sitting. He had always been very amiable. What did some think? Knowing that Jolien was Irene's trustee, all felt the delicacy of this question and looked at Somes with interest. A faint pink had come up in his cheeks. He's going gray, he said. Indeed, had Somes seen him, Somes nodded and the pink vanished. James said suddenly, well, I don't know. I can't tell. It so exactly expressed the sentiment of everybody present that there was something behind everything that nobody responded. But at this moment, Aunt Hester returned. Timothy, she said in a low voice, Timothy has bought a map and he's put in three flags. Timothy had a sigh went round the company. If Timothy had indeed put in three flags already, well, it showed what the nation could do when it was roused. The war was as good as over. End of part one, chapter 12. Recording by Leigh Ann Howlett. Part one, chapter 13 of Enchancery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leigh Ann Howlett. The foresight saga two, Enchancery by John Galsworthy. Part one, chapter 13. Jolien finds out where he is. Jolien stood at the window in Holly's old night nursery, converted into a studio, not because it had a north light, but for its view over the prospect away to the grandstand at Epsom. He shifted to the side window, which overlooked the stable yard and whistled down to the dog Balthazar who lay forever under the clock tower. The old dog looked up and wagged his tail. Poor old boy thought Jolien shifting back to the other window. He had been restless all this week since his attempt to prosecute trusteeship uneasy in his conscience, which was ever acute, disturbed in his sense of compassion, which was easily excited and with a queer sensation as if his feeling for beauty had received some definite embodiment. Autumn was getting hold of the old oak tree. Its leaves were browning. Sunshine had been plentiful and hot this summer, as with trees, so with men's lives. I ought to live long, thought Jolien. I'm getting mildewed for want of heat. If I can't work, I shall be off to Paris. But memory of Paris gave him no pleasure. Besides, how could he go? He must stay and see what Sones was going to do. I'm her trustee. I can't leave her unprotected, he thought. It had been striking him as curious how very clearly he could still see Irene in her little drawing room, which he had only twice entered. Her beauty must have a sort of poignant harmony. No literal portrait would ever do her justice. The essence of her was, uh, I what? The noise of hoofs called him back to the other window. Holly was riding into the yard on her long-tailed palfry. She looked up and he waved to her. She had been rather silent lately. Getting old, he supposed, beginning to want her future as they all did, youngsters. Time was certainly the devil and with the feeling that to waste the swift traveling commodity was unforgivable folly, he took up his brush. But it was no use. He could not concentrate his eye besides the light was going. I'll go up to town, he thought, and the hall a servant met him. A lady to see you, sir, Mrs. Heron. Extraordinary coincidence. Passing into the picture gallery, as it was still called, he saw Irene standing over by the window. She came towards him saying, I've been trespassing. I came up through the compass and garden. I always used to come that way to see Uncle Jolian. You couldn't trespass here, replied Jolian. History makes that impossible. I was just thinking of you. Irene smiled, and it was as if something shone through, not mere spirituality, serene or completer, more alluring. History, she answered. I once told Uncle Jolian that love was forever. Well, it isn't. Only a version lasts. Jolian stared at her. Had she got over Bessini at last? Yes, he said, a version's deeper than love or hate because it's a natural product of the nerves and we don't change them. I came to tell you that Somes has been to see me. He said a thing that frightened me. He said, you were still my wife. What, ejaculated Jolian, you ought not to live alone. And he continued to stare at her, afflicted by the thought that where beauty was, nothing ever ran quite straight, which no doubt was why so many people looked on it as immoral. What more? He asked me to shake hands. Did you? Yes, when he came in, I'm sure he didn't want to. He changed while he was there. You certainly ought not to go on living there alone. I know no woman I could ask, and I can't take a lover to order, cousin Jolian. Heaven forbid, said Jolian. What a damnable position. Will you stay to dinner? No? Well, let me see you back to town. I wanted to go up this evening. Truly? Truly. I'll be ready in five minutes. On that walk to the station, they talked of pictures and music contrasting the English and French characters and the difference in their attitude to art. But to Jolian, the colors and the hedges of the long straight lane, the twittering of chaffages who kept pace with them, the perfume of weeds being already burned, the turn of her neck, the fascination of those dark eyes bent on him now and then, the lure of her whole figure made a deeper impression in the remarks they exchanged. Unconsciously, he held himself straighter, walked with a more elastic step. In the train, he put her through a sort of catechism as to what she did with her days, made her dresses, shopped, visited a hospital, played her piano, translated from the French. She had regular work from a publisher, it seemed, which supplemented her income a little. She seldom went out in the evening. I've been living alone so long, you see, that I don't mind it a bit. I believe I'm naturally solitary. I don't believe that, said Jolian. Do you know many people? Very few. At Waterloo, they took a handsome and he drove with her to the door of her mansions, squeezing her hand at parting, he said. You know, you could always come to us at Robin Hill. You must let me know everything that happens. Goodbye, Irene. Goodbye, she answered softly. Jolian climbed back into his cab, wondering why he had not asked her to die and go to the theater with him. Solitary, starved, hung-up life that she had. Hotch-potch club, he said to the trapdoor, has his handsome debouched onto the embankment. A man in top had an overcoat passed, walking quickly, so close to the wall that he seemed to be scraping it. Why, Jove, thought Jolian. Somes himself, what's he up to now? And stopping the cab round the corner, he got out and retraced his steps to where he could see the entrance to the mansions. Somes has halted in front of them and was looking up at the light in her windows. If he goes in, thought Jolian, what shall I do? What have I the right to do? What the fellow had said was true, she was still his wife, absolutely without protection from annoyance. Well, if he goes in, he thought, I follow. And he began moving towards the mansions. Again, Somes advanced, he was in the very entrance now, but suddenly he stopped, spun round on his heel, and came back towards the river. What now, thought Jolian, and a dozen steps he'll recognize me, and he turned to tail. His cousin's footsteps kept pace with his own, but he reached his cab and got in before Somes had turned the corner. Go on, he said to the trap, Somes' figure ranged up alongside. Handsome, he said. Engaged, hello. Hello, answered Jolian, you? The quick suspicion on his cousin's face white in the lamp light decided him. I can give you a lift, he said, if you're going west. Thanks, answered Somes and got in. I've been seeing Irene, said Jolian when the cab had started. Indeed, you went to see her yesterday yourself, I understand.  The tone, the half-lifted, sneering lip roused sudden anger in Jolian, but he subdued it. You ought to know best, he said, but if you want a divorce, it's not very wise to go seeing her, is it? One can't run with the hair and hunt with the hounds. You're very good to warn me, said Somes, but I have not made up my mind. She has, said Jolian, looking straight before him. You can't take things up, you know, as they were 12 years ago. That remains to be seen. Look here, said Jolian, she's in a damnable position. I am the only person with any legal say in her affairs. Except myself, retorted Somes, who am also in a damnable position. Hers is what she made for herself, mine what she made for me. I am not at all sure that in her own interests I shan't require her to return to me. What, exclaimed Jolian, and a shiver went through his whole body. I don't know what you mean by what, answered Somes coldly. Your say in her affairs is confined to paying out her income. Please bear that in mind. In choosing not to disgrace her by a divorce, I retained my rights, and as I say, I'm not at all sure that I shan't require to exercise them. My God, ejaculated Jolian, and he uttered a short laugh. Yes, said Somes, and there was a deadly quality in his voice. I've not forgotten the nickname your father gave me, the man of property. I'm not called names for nothing. This is fantastic, murmured Jolian. Well, the fellow couldn't force his wife to live with him. Those days were passed anyway, and he looked around at Somes with the thought, is he real this man? The Somes looked very real, sitting square yet almost elegant with the clipped mustache on his pale face, and a tooth showing where a lip was lifted and a fixed smile. There was a long silence while Jolian thought, instead of helping her, I've made things worse. Suddenly, Somes said, it would be the best thing that could happen to her in many ways. At those words, such a turmoil began taking place in Jolian that he could barely sit still in the cab. It was as if he were boxed up with hundreds of thousands of his countrymen, boxed up with that something in the national character which had always been to him revolting, something which he knew to be extremely natural and yet which seemed to him inexplicable. Their intense belief in contracts, invested rights, their complacent sense of virtue and the exaction of those rights. Here beside him in the cab was the very embodiment, the corporeal sum as it were of the possessive instinct, his own kinsman too. It was uncanny and intolerable.  The dog, they say, returns to his vomit. The sight of her has reawakened something. Beauty, the devil's in it. As I say, said sums, I have not made up my mind. I shall be obliged if you will kindly leave her quite alone. Jolian bit his lips. He who had always hated rouse almost welcomed the thought of one now. I can give you no such promise, he said shortly. Very well said sums, then we know where we are. I'll get down here. And stopping the cab, he got out without word or sign of farewell. Jolian traveled on to his club. The first news of the war was being called in the streets, but he paid no attention. What could he do to help her? If only his father were alive, he could have done so much. But why could he not do all that his father could have done? Was he not old enough, turned 50 and twice married with grown up daughters and a son? Queer, he thought, if she were plain, I shouldn't be thinking twice about it. Beauty is the devil when you're sensitive to it. And into the club reading room, he went with a disturbed heart. In that very room, he and Bessini had talked one summer afternoon. He well remembered even now the disguised and secret lecture he had given that young man in the interests of June, the diagnosis of the foresight he had hazarded. And now he had wondered what sort of woman it was he was warning him against. And now he was almost in one of a warning himself. It's Deust funny, he thought. Really Deust funny. End of part one, chapter 13, recording by Leanne Howlett. Part one, chapter 14 of Enchancery. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. The foresight saga two, Enchancery by John Galsworthy. Part one, chapter 14, Somes discovers what he wants. It is so much easier to say than we know where we are than to mean anything particular by the words. And in saying them, Somes did the jealous rankling of his instincts. He got out of the cab in a state of wary anger with himself for not having seen Irene, with Jolian for having seen her, and now with his inability to tell exactly what he wanted. He had abandoned the cab because he could not bear to remain seated beside his cousin and walking briskly eastwards, he thought. I wouldn't trust that fellow Jolian at yard. Once outcast, always outcast. The chap had a natural sympathy with laxity. He had shied at the word sin because it was too melodramatic for use by a foresight. Indecision and desire was to him a new feeling. He was like a child between a promised toy and an old one which had been taken away from him, and he was astonished at himself. Only last Sunday, desire had seemed simple, just his freedom and a net. I'll go and dine there, he thought. To see her might bring back his singleness of intention, calm his exasperation, clear his mind. The restaurant was fairly full, a good many foreigners and full-cum from their appearance he took to be literary or artistic. Scraps of conversation came his way through the clatter of plates and glasses. He distinctly heard the boars sympathize with, the British government blamed. Don't think much of their clientele, he thought. He went stolidly through his dinner and special coffee without making his presence known, and when at last he had finished, was careful not to be seen going towards the sanctum of Madame Lamotte. They were, as he entered, having supper. Such a much nicer-looking supper than the dinner he had eaten that he felt a kind of grief, and they greeted him with a surprise, so seemingly genuine that he thought with sudden suspicion. I believe they knew I was here all the time. He gave Annette a look furtive and searching, so pretty, seemingly so candid. Could she be angling for him? He turned to Madame Lamotte and said, I've been dining here. Really, if she had only known, there were dishes she could have recommended. What a pity. Somme's was confirmed in his suspicion. I must look out what I'm doing, he thought sharply. Another little cup of very special coffee, Montchure, e Le Cor, Grand Marnier, and Madame Lamotte rose to order these delicacies. Along with Annette, Somme said, well Annette, with a defensive little smile about his lips. The girl blushed. This, which last Sunday would have set his nerves tingling, now gave him much the same feeling a man has when a dog that he owns wriggles and looks at him. He had a curious sense of power, as if he could have said to her, come and kiss me, and she would have come. And yet, it was strange, but there seemed another face informed in the room, too, and the itch in his nerves, was it for that or for this? He jerked his head towards the restaurant and said, you have some queer customers, do you like this life? Annette looked up at him for a moment, looked down and played with her fork. No, she said, I do not like it. I've got her, thought Somme's, if I want her, but do I want her? She was graceful, she was pretty, very pretty. She was fresh, she had taste of a kind.  And as in an artist who strives for the unrealizable and is ever thirsty, so there rose in him at that moment the thirst of the old passion he had never satisfied. Well, he said calmly, you're young, there's everything before you. Annette shook her head. I think sometimes there is nothing before me but hard work. I'm not so in love with work as mother.  She will never let failure lodge in her house. Annette sighed, it must be wonderful to be rich.  Annette shrugged her shoulders, one sure is very kind, and between her pouting lips she put a chocolate. Yes, my dear, thought Somme's, they're very pretty. Madam Lamotte, with coffee and liqueur, put an end to that colloquy. Somme's did not stay long. Outside in the streets of Soho, which always gave him such a feeling of property and properly owned, he mused. If only Irene had given him a son, he wouldn't now be squirming after women. The thought had jumped out of its little dark sensory box in his inner consciousness. A son, something to look forward to, something to make the rest of life worthwhile, something to leave himself to, some perpetuity of self. If I had a son, he thought bitterly, a proper legal son, I could make shift to go on as I used. One woman's much the same as another after all. But as he walked, he shook his head. No, one woman was not the same as another. Many a time had he tried to think that in the old days of his thwarted married life and he had always failed. He was failing now. He was trying to think Annette the same as that other. But she was not. She had not the lure of that old passion. And Irene's my wife, he thought, my legal wife. I have done nothing to put her away from me. Why shouldn't she come back to me? It's the right thing, the lawful thing. It makes no scandal, no disturbance. If it's disagreeable to her, but why should it be? I'm not a leper and she's no longer in love. Why should he be put to the shifts and the sort of disgraces and the lurking defeats of the divorce court when there she was like an empty house, only waiting to be retaken into use and possession by him who legally owned her? To one so secretive as soames, the thought of reentry into quiet possession of his own property with nothing given away to the world was intensely alluring. No, he mused, I'm glad I went to see that girl. I know now what I want most. If only Irene will come back, I'll be as considerate as she wishes she could live her own life. But perhaps, perhaps she would come round to me. There was a lump in his throat and doggedly along by the railings of the Green Park towards his father's house he went, trying to tread on his shadow walking before him in the brilliant moonlight. End of Part 1, Chapter 14 Recording by Leanne Howlett Part 2, Chapter 1 of Inchansary This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please go to LibriVox.org Recording by Andy Minter The Foursight Saga 2. Inchansary by John Gallsworthy Part 2, Chapter 1 The Third Generation Jolly Foursight was strolling down High Street Oxford on a November afternoon. Val Darty was strolling up. Jolly had just changed out of boating-clannels and was on his way to the frying-pan to which he had recently been elected. Val had just changed out of riding-clothes and was on his way to the fire, the book-makers in Corn Market. Hello, said Jolly. Hello, replied Val. The cousins had met but twice. Jolly, the second-year man having invited the freshman to breakfast, and last evening they had seen each other again under somewhat exotic circumstances. Over at Taylor's in the Corn Market resided one of those privileged young beings called Miners, whose inheritances are large, whose parents are dead, whose guardians are remote and whose instincts are vicious. At nineteen he had commenced one of those careers attractive and inexplicable to ordinary mortals for whom a single bankruptcy is as good as a feast. Already famous for having the only roulette-table then to be found in Oxford, he was anticipating his expectations as a dazzling rate. He outcrumbed Crumb, though of a sanguine and rather beefy type, which lacked the latter's fascinating langer. For Val it had been in the nature of baptism to be taken there to play roulette, in the nature of confirmation to get back into college after hours through a window whose bars were deceptive. Once, during that evening of delight, glancing up from the seductive green before him, he had caught sight through a cloud of smoke of his cousin standing opposite. Rouge-gagné, amper et manque. He had not seen him again. Come into the frying-pan and have tea," said Jolly, and they went in. A stranger, seeing them together, would have noticed an unceasable resemblance between these second cousins of the third generation of foresights, the same bone formation in face, though Jolly's eyes were darker gray, his hair lighter and more wavy. "'Ten buttered buns, waiter, please,' said Jolly. "'Have one of my cigarettes,' said Val. "'I saw you last night. How did you do?' "'I didn't pay. I won fifteen quid.'" Though desirous of repeating a whimsical comment on gambling, he had once heard his father make. "'When you're fleeced, you're sick. And when you fleece, you're sorry.'" Jolly contented himself with, a lot in game, I think. I was at school with that chap.  "'Oh, I don't know,' said Val, as one might speak in defence of a disparaged guard. "'He's a pretty good sport.'" They exchanged whiffs in silence. "'You met my people, didn't you?' said Jolly. "'They're coming up tomorrow.'" Val grew a little red. "'Really?' "'I can give you a real good tip for the Manchester November handicap. Thanks. I only take an interest in the classic races.'" "'You can't make any money over them,' said Val. "'I hate the ring,' said Jolly. "'They're such a round stink. I like the pedic. I like to back my judgement,' answered Val. Jolly smiled. His smile was like his father's. "'I haven't got any. I always lose money, if I bet.'" "'You have to buy experience, of course.' "'Yes, but it's all messed up with doing people in the eye.'" "'Of course, or they'll do you. That's the excitement.'" Jolly looked a little scornful. "'What do you do with yourself?' "'Well?' "'No. Ride and drive about. I'm going to play polo next term if I can get my grandad to stump up.' "'That's old Uncle James, isn't it? What's he like?' "'Older than Forty Hills,' said Val, and always thinking he's going to be ruined. "'I suppose my grandad and he were brothers.' "'I don't believe any of that old lot was sportsman,' said Val. "'They must have worshipped money.' "'Nine didn't,' said Jolly, warmly. Val flipped the ash off his cigarette. "'Money's only fit to spend,' he said. "'I wish the deuce I had more.' Jolly gave him that direct upward look of judgement which he had inherited from old Jolian. One didn't talk about money, and again there was silence while they drank tea and ate the buttered buns. "'Where are your people going to stay?' asked Val, elaborately casual. "'Then, Val, what do you think of the war?' "'Lot and so far. The boars aren't sports a bit. Why don't they come out into the open?' "'Why, should they? They've got everything against them except they were fighting. Harden. They can ride and shoot,' admitted Val. "'But there are lousy lot. Do you know Crumb? Have a merton. Only by sight. He's in that fast set, too, isn't he? While the lardy darn bramagem.' Val said fixedly. "'He's a friend of mine. Oh, sorry.' And they sat awkwardly, staring past each other, having pitched on their pet points of snobbery. For Jolly was forming himself unconsciously. On a set whose motto was, "'We defy you to bore us. Life isn't half long enough, and we're going to talk faster and more crisply, do more and know more and dwell less on any subject than you can possibly imagine. We are the best, made of wire and whip-cord.' And Val was unconsciously forming himself on a set whose motto was, "'We defy you to interest or excite us. We have had every sensation, or if we haven't we pretend we have. We are so exhausted with living that no ours are too small for us. We will lose our shirts with equanimity. We have flown fast and have passed everything. All is cigarette smoke.' Bismarra. Competitive spirit, bone deep in the English, was obliging those two young foresights to have ideals. And at the close of a century ideals are mixed. The aristocracy had already in the main adopted the jumping Jesus principle, though here and there, one like Crumb, who was an honourable, stood starkly languid for that gambler's nirvana, which had been the summum bonum of the old dandies and of the mashers in the eighties, and round Crumb was still gathered a forlorn hope of blue-bloods with a plutocratic following. But there was between the cousins another far less obvious antipathy coming from the unceasable family resemblance, which each perhaps resented or from some half-consciousness of that old feud persisting between their branches of the clan, formed within them by odd words or half hints dropped by their elders.  Good lord! And Vow, finishing his bun, was thinking he's rather a young beast. I suppose you'll be meeting your people, he said, getting up. I wish you'd tell them that I should like to show them over BNC. Not that there's anything much there. If they'd care to come. Thanks. I ask them, would they lunch? I've got rather a decent scout. Jolly doubted if they would have time. You'll ask them, though. Very good of you, said jolly, fully meaning that they should not go, but instinctively polite, he added, they'll better come and have dinner with us tomorrow. Rather, what time? Seven thirty. Dress? Nair. And they parted, a subtle antagonism alive within them. Holly and her father arrived by a midday train. It was her first visit to the city of spires and dreams, and she was very silent, looking almost chile at the brother who was part of this wonderful place. After lunch, she wandered, examining his household guards with intense curiosity. Jolly's sitting-room was panelled, and art represented by a set of botelotsy prints, which had belonged to old Jolyon, and by college photographs of young men, live young men, a little heroic, and to be compared with her memories of Val. Jollyon also scrutinised with care that evidence of his boy's character and tastes. Jolly was anxious that they should see him rowing, so they set forth to the river. Holly, between her brother and her father, felt elated when heads were turned and eyes rested on her, that they might see him to the best advantage. They left him at the barge, and crossed the river to the towing-path. Slight and billed, for of all the foresight's only old Swithin and George were beefy. Jolly was rowing two in a trial-eight. He looked very earnest and strenuous. With pride, Jollyon thought him the best-looking boy of the lot. Holly, as became a sister, was more struck by one or two of the others, but would not have said so for the world. The river was bright that afternoon, the meadows lush, and the trees still beautiful with colour. Distinguished Peas clung around the old city. Jollyon promised himself a day's sketching, if the weather held. The eight passed a second time, spurting home along the barges. Jolly's face was very set, so as not to show that he was blown. They returned across the river and waited for him. Ah! said Jolly in Christchurch meadows. I had to ask their chap Bel-Darthit to dine with us to-night. Who wanted to give you lunch and show you Ben's say, so I thought I'd better. I didn't like it much. Holly's rather sallow face had become suffused with pink. Why not? I don't know. He seems to me rather showy in bad form. What are his people like, Dad? He's only a second cousin, isn't he? Jollyon took refuge and a smile. Ask Holly, he said. She saw his uncle. I liked Val, Holly answered, staring at the ground before her. His uncle looked awfully different. She stole a glance at Jolly from under her lashes. Did you ever, said Jollyon, with whimsical intention, hear our family history, my dears? It's quite a fairytale. The first Jollyon foresight, at all events the first we know anything of, and that would be your great-great-grandfather, dwelt in the land of Dorset, on the edge of the sea, on an agricultural list, as your great-aunt put it, and the son of an agricultural list, farmers, in fact. Your grandfather used to call them very small beer. He looked at Jolly to see how his lordiness was standing it, and with the other eye noted Holly's malicious pleasure in the slight drop of her brother's face. We may suppose him thick and sturdy, standing for England, as it was before the industrial era began. The second Jollyon foresight, your great-grandfather, Jolly, better known as Superior Dosset foresight, built houses, as the chronicle runs, began at ten children and migrated to London town. It is known that he drank sherry. We may suppose him representing the England of Napoleon's wars in general unrest. The eldest of his six sons was the third Jollyon, your grandfather, my dears, tea merchant and chairman of companies, and the soundest Englishman who ever lived, and to me the dearest. Jollyon's voice had lost its irony, and his son and daughter gazed at him solemnly. He was just and tenacious, tender and young at heart. You'll remember him and I'll remember him. Past the others, your great-uncle James, that's young Val's grandfather, had a son called Somes, whereby hangs a tale of no love lost, and I don't think I'll tell it to you. James and the other eight children of Superior Dosset, of whom there are still five alive, may be said to have represented Victorian England, but its principles of trade and individualism at five percent, and your money back, if you know what that means. At all events, they've turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million between them in the course of their long lives. They never did a wild thing, like Uncle Swithin, who I believe was once swindled at Thimble-Rig, and was called Foreign Hand-Forsight because he drove a pair. Their day is passing, and their type, not altogether for the advantage of the country. They were pedestrian, but they too were sound. I'm the Fourth Jolian-Forsight, a poor holder of the name. No, Dad, said Jolly, and Holly squeezed his hand. Yes, repeated Jolian, a poor specimen, representing, I'm afraid, nothing but the end of the century, unearned income, amateurism, and individual liberty. A different thing from individualism, Jolly. You're the Fifth Jolian-Forsight, old man, and you open the ball of the new century. As he spoke, they turned in through the college gates, and Holly said, it's fascinating, Dad. None of them quite knew what she meant. Jolly was grave. The rainbow, distinguished as only an Oxford hostel can be, for lack of modernity, provided one small, oak-panelled private sitting-room in which Holly sat to receive. White frocked, shy, and alone, when the only guest arrived. Rather as one would touch a moth, Val took her hand, and wouldn't she wear this measly flower? It would look ripping in her hair. He removed a gardenia from his coat. Oh, no, thank you, I couldn't. But she took it, and pinned it at her neck, having suddenly remembered that word, showy. Val's buttonhole would give a fence, and she so much wanted Jolly to like him. Did she realise that Val was at his best and quietest in her presence, and was that, perhaps, half the secret of his attraction for her? I never said anything about our ride, Val. Rather than not, it's just between us. By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidgeting of his feet he was giving her a sense of power very delicious, a soft feeling, too, the wish to make him happy. Do tell me about Oxford. It must be ever so lovely. Val admitted that he was frightfully decent to do what you liked. The lectures were nothing, and there were some very good chaps. Of course, I wish I was in town and could come down and see you. Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee, and her glance dropped. You haven't forgotten, he said, suddenly gathering courage, that we're going mad rabbiting together. Holly smiled. Oh, that was only make-believe. One can't do that sort of thing after one's grown up, you know. Dash it, cousins can, said Val. Next long vag. It begins in June, you know, and goes on forever. We'll watch our chance. But though the thrill of conspiracy ran through her veins, Holly shook her head. It won't come off, she murmured. Won't it? said Val fervently. Who's going to stop it? Not your father or your brother? At this moment Jolian and Jolly came in and romance fled into Val's patent leather and Holly's white sat-in toes where they ditched and tingled in the evening, not conspicuous for open-heartedness. Sensitive to atmosphere Jolian soon felt the latent antagonism between the boys and was puzzled by Holly so he became unconsciously ironical which is fatal to the expansiveness of Euth. A letter handed to him after dinner reduced him to a silence hardly broken till Jolly and Val rose to go. He went out with them smoking his cigar and walked with his son to the gates of Christchurch. Turning back he took out the letter and read it again beneath a lamp. Dear Jolian Somes came again to-night my thirty-seventh birthday. You were right. I mustn't stay here. I'm going to-morrow to the Piedmont Hotel but I won't go abroad without seeing you. I feel lonely and down-hearted. Yours affectionately. Irene. He folded the letter back into his pocket and walked on astonished at the violence of his feelings. What had the fellow said or done? He turned into High Street down the turf and on among a maze of spires and domes and long college fronts and walls bright or dark-shadowed in the strong moonlight. In this very heart of England's gentility it was difficult to realise that a lonely woman could be impotuned or haunted. But what else could her letter mean? Somes must have been pressing her to go back to him again with public opinion and the law on his side too. Eighteen ninety-nine he thought, gazing at the broken glass shining on the top of a villa-garden wall. But when it comes to property we are still a heathen people. I'll go up to-morrow morning. I daresay it'll be best for her to go abroad. Yet the thought displeased him. Why should Somes hunt her out of England? Besides, he might follow and out there she would be still more helpless against the attentions of her own husband. I must tread warily, he thought. That fellow could make himself very nasty. I didn't like his manner in the cab the other night. The thoughts turned to his daughter June. Could she help? Once on a time Irene had been her greatest friend and now she was a lame duck such as must appeal to June's nature. He determined to wire to his daughter to meet him at Paddington Station. Retracing his steps towards the rainbow he questioned his own sensations. Would he be upsetting himself over every woman in like case? No, he would not. The candour of this conclusion discomforted him. And finding that Holly had gone up to bed he sought his own room. But he could not sleep and sat for a long time at his window, huddled in an overcoat watching the moonlight on the roofs. Next door Holly too was awake thinking of the lashes above and below Val's eyes especially below and of what she could do to make Jolly like him better. The scent of the gardenia was strong in her little bedroom and pleasant to her. And Val, leaning out of his first-floor window in BNC was gazing at a moonlit quadrangle without seeing it at all. Seeing instead Holly slim and white-frocked as she sat by the fire when he first went in. But Jolly, in his bedroom, narrow as a ghost, lay with a hand beneath his cheek and dreamt he was with Val in one boat rowing a race against him while his father was calling from the tow-path.  End of Part 2, Chapter 1 Part 2, Chapter 2 of Enchantsery This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please go to LibriVox.org Recording by Andy Minter The Foresight Saga II Enchantsery by John Gallsworthy Part 2, Chapter 2 Somes Puts It to the Touch Of all those radiant firms which emblazoned with their windows the west end of London, gaves and cortical were considered by Somes the most attractive. The word just coming into fashion. He had never had his Uncle Swithin's taste in precious stones and the abandonment by Irene when she left his house in 1887 of all the glittering things he had given her, had disgusted him with this form of investment. But he still knew a diamond when he saw one. And during the week before her birthday he had taken occasion on his way into poultry or on his way out therefrom to dally a little before the greater jewelers where one got if not one's money's worth at least a certain cachet with the goods. Constant cogitation since his drive with Jolien had convinced him more and more of the supreme importance of this moment in his life, the supreme need for taking steps and those not wrong. And alongside the dry and reasoned sense that it was now or never with his self-preservation now or never if he would arrange himself and found a family went the secret urge of his senses roused by the sight of her who had once been a passionately desired wife and the conviction that it was a sin against common sense and the decent secrecy of foresight to waste the wife he had. In an opinion on Winifred's case Dreamer Q.C. he would much have preferred Waterbuck but they had made him a judge so late in the day as to rouse the usual suspicion of a political job had advised that they should go forward and obtain restitution of conjugal rights a point which to Soames had never been in doubt. When they had obtained a decree to that effect they must wait to see if it was obeyed if not it would constitute legal desertion and they should obtain evidence of misconduct and file their petition for divorce all of which Soames knew perfectly well they had marked him ten and one. This simplicity in his sister's case only made him the more desperate about the difficulty in his own everything, in fact, was driving him towards the simple solution of Irene's return. If it was still against the grain with her had he not feelings to subdue injury to forgive pain to forget he at least had never injured her and this was a world of compromise he had not feelings to subdue a world of compromise he could offer her so much more than she had now he would be prepared to make a liberal settlement on her which could not be upset he often scrutinized his image in these days he had never been a peacock like that fellow darty or fancied himself a woman's man but he had a certain belief in his own appearance not unjustly for it was well coupled and preserved neat healthy pale unblemished by drink or excess of any kind the foresight jaw and the concentration of his face were in his eyes virtues so far as he could tell there was no feature of him which need inspired dislike thoughts and yearnings with which one lives daily become natural even if far fetched in their inception if he could only give tangible proof enough of his determination to let bygones be bygones and to do all in his power to please her why should she not come back to him he entered caves and corticals therefore on the morning of November the 9th to buy a certain diamond brooch 425 and dirt cheap sir at the bunny it's a lady's brooch there was that in his mood which made him accept without demure and he went on into poultry with the flat green morocco case in his breast pocket several times that day he opened it to look at the seven soft shining stones in their velvet oval nest if the lady doesn't like it sir happy to exchange it at any time but there's no fear of that if only there were not he got through a vast amount of work only soother of the nerves he knew a cable-gram came while he was in the office with details from the agent in Buenos Aires and the name and address of a stewardess he prepared to swear to what was necessary it was a timely spur to sowns with his rooted distaste for the washing of dirty linen in public and when he set forth by underground to Victoria station he received a fresh impetus towards the renewal of his married life from the account in his evening paper of a fashionable divorce suit the homing instinct of all true foresight in anxiety and trouble the corporate tendency which kept them strong and solid made him choose to dine at Park Lane he neither could nor would breathe the word to his people of his intention too reticent and proud but the thought that at least they would be glad if they knew and wish him luck was heartening James was in a lugubrious mood for the fire which the impudence of Kruger's ultimatum had lit in him had been cold watered by the poor success of the last month and the exhortations to effort in the times he didn't know where it would end sowns sought to cheer him by the continual use of the word but James couldn't tell there was collie and he got stuck on that hill and this lady smith was down in a hollow and altogether it looked to him a pretty kettle of fish he thought they ought to be sending the sailors they were the chaps they did a lot of good in the Crimea sowns shifted the ground to the consulation Winifred had heard from Val that there had been a rag and a bonfire on Guy Fawkes Day at Oxford and that he had escaped detection by blacking his face ah, James muttered he's a clever little chap but he shook his head shortly afterwards and remarked that he didn't know what would become of him and looking wistfully at his son murmured on that sowns had never had a boy he would have liked a grandson and now, well, there it was sowns flinched he had not expected such a challenge to disclose the secret in his heart and Emily, who saw him wince said, nonsense, James don't talk like that but James not looking anyone in the face muttered on there were Roger and Nicholas and Julian they all had grandsons and Swithin and Timothy had never married he had done his best and was soon begun now and as though he had uttered words of profound consolation he was silent, eating brains with a fork and a piece of bread and swallowing the bread sowns excused himself directly after dinner it was not really cold but he put on his fur coat which served to fortify him against the fits of nervous shivering to which he had been subject all day subconsciously he knew that he looked better he had a thick overcoat then, feeling the Morocco case flat against his heart, he salad forth he was no smoker but he lit a cigarette and smoked it gingerly as he walked along he moved slowly down the road towards Knightsbridge timing himself to get to Chelsea at 9.15 what did she do with herself evening after evening in that little hole how mysterious women were one lived alongside them what could she have seen in that fellow Bacini to send her mad for there was madness after all in what she had done crazy moon-strike madness in which all sense of values had been lost and her life and his life ruined and for a moment he was filled with a sort of exultation as though he were a man read of in a story who, possessed by the Christian spirit would restore to her all the prizes of existence living and forgetting and becoming the godfather of her future under a tree opposite Knightsbridge barracks where the moonlight struck down clear and white he took out once more the Morocco case and let the beams draw colour from those stones yes, they were of the first water but at the hard closing snap of the case another cold shiver ran through his nerves and he walked on faster he left hands in the pocket of his coat almost hoping she would not be in the thought of how mysterious she was again beset him dining alone there night after night in an evening dress too as if she were making believe to be in society playing the piano to herself not even a dog or cat so far as he had seen and that reminded him suddenly of the mare he kept for station work at Maple Durham if ever he went to the stable there she was quite alone half asleep and yet on her home journeys going more freely than on her way out as if longing to be back and lonely in her stable I would treat her well he thought incoherently I would be very careful and all that capacity for home life of which a mocking fate seemed forever to have deprived him swelled suddenly in soams so that he dreamed dreams opposite South Kensington station in the king's road a man came slithering out of a public house playing a concertina soams watched him for a moment dance crazily on the pavement to his own drawling jagged sounds then crossed over to avoid contact with this piece of drunken foolery a night in the lock up what asses people were but the man had noticed his movement of avoidance and streams of genial blasphemy followed him across the street I hope the runny men thought soams viciously to have roughians like that about with women out alone a woman's figure in front had induced this thought her walk seemed oddly familiar and when she turned the corner for which he was bound his heart began to beat he hastened on to the corner to make certain yes it was Irene he could not mistake her walk in that little drab street she threaded two more turnings and from the last corner he saw her enter her block of flats to make sure of her now he ran those few paces hurried up the stairs and caught her standing at her door he heard the latch key in the lock and reached her side just as she turned round startled in the open doorway don't be alarmed he said breathless I happen to see you let me come in a minute she had put her hand up to her breast her face was colourless her eyes widened by alarm then seeming to master herself she inclined her head and said very well soams closed the door he too had need to recover and when she had passed into the sitting-room waited a full minute taking deep breaths to still the beating of his heart at this moment so fraught with the future to take out that Morocco case seemed crude yet not to take it out left him there before her with no preliminary excuse for coming and in this dilemma he was seized with impatience at all this paraphernalia of excuse and justification this was a scene he could be nothing else and he must face it he heard her voice uncomfortably, pathetically soft why have you come again didn't you understand that I would rather you did not he noticed her clothes a brown velvet corduroy a sable-bower a small round toque of the same they suited her admirably she had money to spare for dress evidently he said abruptly it's your birthday I brought you this and he held out to her the green Morocco case oh no, no soams pressed the clasp the seven stones gleamed out on the pale grey velvet why not? he said just as a sign that you don't bear me any ill feeling any longer I couldn't soams took it out of the case let me just see how it looks she shrank back he followed thrusting his hand with the brooch in it against the front of her dress she shrank again soams dropped his hand Irene, he said let bygones be bygones you might let's begin again as if nothing had been won't you? his voice was wistful and his eyes resting on her face had in them a sort of supplication she who was standing literally with her back against the wall gave a little gulp and that was all her answer soams went on can you really want to live all your days half dead in this little hole come back to me and I'll give you all you want I swear it he saw her face quiver ironically yes, he repeated but I mean it this time I'll only ask one thing I just want I just want a son don't look like that, I want one, it's hard his voice had grown hurried so that he hardly knew it for his own and twice he jerked his head back as if struggling for breath it was the sight of her eyes fixed on him dark with a sort of fascinated fright which pulled him together and changed that painful incoherence to anger is it so very unnatural he said between his teeth is it unnatural to want a child from one's own wife you wrecked our life and put this blight on everything we go on only half alive and without any future is it so very unflattering to you that in spite of everything I still want you for my wife speak for goodness sake do speak Irene seemed to try but did not succeed I don't want to frighten you said Soames more gently heaven knows I only want you to see that I can't go on like this I want you back I want you Irene raised one hand and covered the lower part of her face but her eyes never moved from his as though she trusted them to keep him at bay and all those years barren and bitter since when almost since he had first known her surged up in one great wave of recollection in Soames and a spasm that for his life he could not control constricted his face it's not too late he said it's not if you'll only believe it Irene uncovered her lips and both her hands made a writhing gesture in front of her breast Soames seized them don't! she said under her breath but he stood holding on to them trying to stare into her eyes which did not waver then she said quietly I am alone here you won't behave again as you once behaved dropping her hands as though they had been hot irons he turned away was it possible that there could be such relentless unforgiveness could that one act of violent possession be still alive within her did it bar him thus utterly? and doggedly he said without looking up I'm not going till you've answered me I'm offering what few men could bring themselves to offer I want a reasonable answer and almost with surprise he heard her say you can't have a reasonable answer reason has nothing to do with it you can only have the brutal truth I would rather die Soames stared at her oh! he said and though intervened in him a sort of paralysis of speech and movement the kind of quivering which comes when a man has received a deadly insult and does not yet know how he is going to take it or rather what it is going to do with him oh! he said again as bad as that indeed you would rather die that's pretty I'm sorry you wanted me to answer I can't help the truth, can I? at that queer spiritual appeal Soames turned for relief to actuality he snapped the brooch back into its case and put it in his pocket the truth he said there's no such thing with women it's nerves nerves he heard the whisper yes, nerves don't lie haven't you discovered that? he was silent obsessed by the thought I will hate this woman I will hate her that was the trouble if only he could he shot a glance at her who stood unmoving against the wall with her head up and her hands grasped for all the world as if she were going to be shot and he said quickly I don't believe a word of it you have a lover if you hadn't you wouldn't be such a little idiot he was conscious before the expression in her eyes that he had uttered something of a non-secretare and dropped back to abruptly into the verbal freedom of his conubial days he turned away to the door but he could not go out something within him that most deep and secret foresight quality the impossibility of letting go the impossibility of seeing the fantastic and forlorn nature of his own tenacity prevented him he turned about again and stood with his back against the door as hers was against the wall opposite quite unconscious of anything ridiculous in this separation by the width of the room do you ever think of anybody but yourself? he said Irene's lips quivered then she answered slowly do you ever think that I found out my mistake my hopeless terrible mistake the very first week of our marriage that I went on trying three years you know I went on trying was it for myself?  I ask you a plain question what is it? unconscious of the pathos in that inquiry he went on passionately I'm not lame, I'm not loathsome what is it? what's the mystery about me? her answer was a long sigh he clasped his hands with a gesture that was for him strangely full of expression when I came here tonight I was, I hoped I meant everything that I could do away with the past and start fair again and you meet me with nerves and silence and sighs there's nothing tangible it's like a spider's web yes that whisper from across the room maddened soames afresh well I don't choose to be in a spider's web I'll cut it he walked straight up to her now what he had gone up to her to do he really did not know but when he was close the old familiar scent of her clothes suddenly affected him he put his hands on her shoulders and bent forward to kiss her in a hard line where the lips had been drawn in then his face was pressed away by her hands he heard her say oh no shame, compunction sense of futility flooded his whole being he turned on his heel and went straight out End of Part 2 Chapter 2 Part 2, Chapter 3 of Enchancery This is a LibriVox recording All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Leanne Howlett The foresight saga 2 Enchancery by John Galsworthy Part 2, Chapter 3 Visit to Irene Julian found June waiting on the platform at Paddington She had received his telegram while at breakfast Her abode, a studio in two bedrooms in a St. John's Wood Garden had been selected for her for the complete independence which it guaranteed Unwashed by Mrs. Grundy unhindered by permanent domestics she could receive lame ducks at any hour of day or night at June's She enjoyed her freedom and possessed herself with a sort of virginal passion the warmth which she would have lavished on Bessini and of which given her foresight tenacity he must surely have tired She now expended in championship of the underdogs and budding geniuses of the artistic world She lived, in fact, to turn ducks into the swans she believed they were The very fervor of her protection but she was loyal and liberal Her small eager hand was ever against the oppressions of academic and commercial opinion and though her income was considerable her bank balance was often a minus quantity She had come to Paddington Station heated in her soul by a visit to Eric Cobbley A miserable gallery had refused to let that straight-haired genius have his one-man show after all Its impudent manager after visiting his studio had the opinion that it would only be a one-horse show from the selling point of view This crowning example of commercial cowardice towards her favorite lame duck and he so hard up with a wife and two children that he had caused her account to be overdrawn was still making the blood glow in her small resolute face and her red-gold hair to shine more than ever She gave her father a hug and got into a cab with him having as many fish to fry with him He became at once a question which would fry them first Jolian had reached the words My dear, I want you to come with me When, glancing at her face he perceived by her blue eyes moving from side to side like the tale of a preoccupied cat that she was not attending Dad, is it true that I absolutely can't get at any of my money? Only the income, fortunately, my love How perfectly beastly can't it be done somehow? There must be a way I know I could buy a small gallery for ten thousand pounds A small gallery, murmured Jolian seems a modest desire which her grandfather foresaw it I think, cried June vigorously that all this care about money is awful when there's so much genius in the world simply crushed out for want of a little I shall never marry and have children Why shouldn't I be able to do some good instead of having it all tied up in the hands of things which will never come off?  Nor do I, but it's a fact anyway We live by the principle that so long as there is a possibility of keeping wealth in the family it must not go out If you die unmarried your money goes to Jolly and Holly and their children if they marry Isn't it pleasant to know that whatever you do you can none of you be destitute? But can't I borrow the money? Jolian shook his head You could rent a gallery, no doubt if you could manage it out of your income June uttered a contemptuous sound Yes, and have no income left to help anybody with My dear child, murmur Jolian wouldn't it come to the same thing? No, said June shrewdly I could buy for ten thousand that would only be four hundred a year but I should have to pay a thousand a year rent and that would only leave me five hundred If I had the gallery, Dad, think what I could do I could make Eric Cobbley's name and ever so many others names worth making make themselves in time When they're dead Did you ever know anybody living my dear improved by having his name made? Yes, you said June, pressing his arm Jolian started I, he thought Oh, ah now she's going to ask me to do something we take it out we four sites each in our different ways June came closer to him in the cab Darling, she said, you buy the gallery and I'll pay you four hundred a year for it then neither of us will be any the worse off besides it's a splendid investment Jolian wriggled Don't you think, he said that for an artist to buy a gallery is a bit dubious besides ten thousand pounds is a lump and I'm not a commercial character June looked at him with admiring appraisement Of course you're not but you're awfully business like and I'm sure we can make it pay it'll be a perfect way of scoring off those wretched dealers and people and again she squeezed her father's arm Jolian's face expressed quizzical despair Where is this desirable gallery splendidly situated I suppose Just off Cork Street Ah, thought Jolian I knew it was just off somewhere now for what I want out of her Well, I'll think of it but not just now You remember Irene I want you to come with me and see her Somes is after her again She might be safer if we could give her asylum somewhere The word asylum which she had used by chance was of all most calculated to her interest Irene, I haven't seen her since Of course I'd love to help her It was Jolian's turn to squeeze her arm and warm admiration for the spirited generous hearted little creature of his begetting Irene is proud, he said with a side long glance and sudden doubt of June's discretion She's difficult to help We must tread gently, this is the place I wired her to expect us Let's send up our cards I can't bear Somes said June as she got out He sneers at everything that isn't successful Irene was in what was called the ladies drawing room of the Piedmont Hotel Nothing if not morally courageous June walked straight up to her former friend, kissed her cheek and the two settled down on a sofa never sat on since the hotel's foundation Jolian could see that Irene was deeply affected by this simple forgiveness So Somes has been worrying you, he said I had a visit from him last night He wants me to go back to him You're not going, of course cried June Irene smiled faintly and shook her head But his position is horrible she murmured It's his own fault He ought to have divorced you when he could Jolian remembered how fervently in the old days, June had hoped that no divorce would smirk her dead and faithless lover's name Let us hear what Irene is going to do, he said Irene's lips quivered but she spoke calmly I'd better give him fresh excuse to get rid of me How horrible! cried June What else can I do? Out of the question said Jolian very quietly Sansa Moore He thought she was going to cry but getting up quickly she half turned her back on them and stood regaining control of herself June said suddenly Well I shall go to Somes and tell him he must leave you alone What does he want at his age? A child It's not unnatural A child cried June scornfully Of course, to leave his money to If he wants one badly enough let him take somebody and have one then you can divorce him and he can marry her Jolian perceived suddenly that he had made a mistake to bring June Her violent partisanship was fighting Somes' battle It would be best for Irene to come quietly to us at Robin Hill and see how things shape Of course, said June only Irene looked full at Jolian and all his many attempts afterwards to analyze that glance he never could succeed No I should only bring trouble on you all I will go abroad He knew from her voice that this was final, the irrelevant thought flashed through him Well, I could see her there but he said Don't you think you would be more helpless abroad in case he followed? I don't know I can but try June sprang up and paced the room It's all horrible He said, why should people be tortured and kept miserable and helpless year after year by this disgusting sanctimonious law But someone had come into the room and June came to a standstill Jolian went up to Irene Do you want money? No And would you like me to let you flat? Yes, Jolian, please When shall you be going?  This, he said with an anxiety strange to himself No, I've got all I want here You'll send me your address She put out her hand to him I feel you're a rock Built on sand answered Jolian pressing her hand hard But it's a pleasure to do anything at any time, remember that And if you change your mind Come along June, say goodbye June came from the window and flung her arms around Irene Don't think of him, she said under her breath Enjoy yourself and bless you With the memory of tears in Irene's eyes and of a smile on her lips they went away extremely silent passing the lady who had interrupted the interview and was turning over the papers on the table Opposite the National Gallery June exclaimed dignified beasts and horrible laws But Jolian did not respond He had something of his father's balance and could see things impartially even when his emotions were roused Irene was right Some's this position was as bad or worse than her own As for the law it catered for a human nature of which it took a naturally low view and feeling that if he stayed in his daughter's company or another committed an indiscretion he told her he must catch his train back to Oxford and hailing a cab left her to turn her watercolors with the promise that he would think over that gallery But he thought over Irene instead Pity they said was akin to love if so he was certainly in danger of loving her for he pitied her profoundly to think of her drifting about Europe so handicapped and lonely After goodness she'll keep her head he thought she might easily grow desperate In fact now that she had cut loose from her poor threads of occupation he couldn't imagine how she would go on so beautiful a creature hopeless and fair game for anyone and his exasperation was more than a little fear and jealousy women did strange things when they were driven into corners I wonder what some's will do now he thought a rotten idiotic state of things and I suppose they would say it was her own fault very preoccupied and sore at heart he got into his train mislaid his ticket and on the platform at Oxford took his hat off to a lady whose face he seemed to remember without being able to put a name to her not even when he saw her having tea at the rainbow End of part 2 Chapter 3 Recording by Leanne Howlett