Five Tales | Page 4

Summer..." became the first
section of the second volume of The Forsyte Saga]

FIVE TALES
"Life calls the tune, we dance."

CONTENTS:
THE FIRST AND LAST A STOIC THE APPLE TREE THE
JURYMAN INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE

THE FIRST AND LAST
"So the last shall be first, and the first last."--HOLY WRIT.

It was a dark room at that hour of six in the evening, when just the
single oil reading-lamp under its green shade let fall a dapple of light
over the Turkey carpet; over the covers of books taken out of the
bookshelves, and the open pages of the one selected; over the deep blue
and gold of the coffee service on the little old stool with its Oriental
embroidery. Very dark in the winter, with drawn curtains, many rows
of leather-bound volumes, oak-panelled walls and ceiling. So large, too,
that the lighted spot before the fire where he sat was just an oasis. But
that was what Keith Darrant liked, after his day's work--the hard early
morning study of his "cases," the fret and strain of the day in court; it
was his rest, these two hours before dinner, with books, coffee, a pipe,
and sometimes a nap. In red Turkish slippers and his old brown velvet
coat, he was well suited to that framing of glow and darkness. A painter
would have seized avidly on his clear-cut, yellowish face, with its black
eyebrows twisting up over eyes--grey or brown, one could hardly tell,
and its dark grizzling hair still plentiful, in spite of those daily hours of
wig. He seldom thought of his work while he sat there, throwing off
with practised ease the strain of that long attention to the multiple
threads of argument and evidence to be disentangled-- work profoundly
interesting, as a rule, to his clear intellect, trained to almost instinctive
rejection of all but the essential, to selection of what was legally vital
out of the mass of confused tactical and human detail presented to his
scrutiny; yet sometimes tedious and wearing. As for instance to-day,
when he had suspected his client of perjury, and was almost convinced
that he must throw up his brief. He had disliked the weak-looking,
white-faced fellow from the first, and his nervous, shifty answers, his
prominent startled eyes--a type too common in these days of canting
tolerations and weak humanitarianism; no good, no good!

Of the three books he had taken down, a Volume of Voltaire--curious
fascination that Frenchman had, for all his destructive irony!--a volume
of Burton's travels, and Stevenson's "New Arabian Nights," he had
pitched upon the last. He felt, that evening, the want of something
sedative, a desire to rest from thought of any kind. The court had been
crowded, stuffy; the air, as he walked home, soft, sou'-westerly,
charged with coming moisture, no quality of vigour in it; he felt relaxed,
tired, even nervy, and for once the loneliness of his house seemed
strange and comfortless.
Lowering the lamp, he turned his face towards the fire. Perhaps he
would get a sleep before that boring dinner at the Tellasson's. He
wished it were vacation, and Maisie back from school. A widower for
many years, he had lost the habit of a woman about him; yet to-night he
had a positive yearning for the society of his young daughter, with her
quick ways, and bright, dark eyes. Curious what perpetual need of a
woman some men had! His brother Laurence--wasted--all through
women--atrophy of willpower! A man on the edge of things; living
from hand to mouth; his gifts all down at heel! One would have thought
the Scottish strain might have saved him; and yet, when a Scotsman did
begin to go downhill, who could go faster? Curious that their mother's
blood should have worked so differently in her two sons. He himself
had always felt he owed all his success to it.
His thoughts went off at a tangent to a certain issue troubling his legal
conscience. He had not wavered in the usual assumption of
omniscience, but he was by no means sure that he had given right
advice. Well! Without that power to decide and hold to decision in
spite of misgiving, one would never have been fit for one's position at
the Bar, never have been fit for anything. The longer he lived, the more
certain he became of the prime necessity of virile and decisive action in
all the affairs of life. A word and a blow--and the blow first! Doubts,
hesitations, sentiment the muling and puking of this twilight age--! And
there welled up on his handsome face a smile that was almost
devilish--the tricks of firelight are so many! It faded again in sheer
drowsiness; he slept....
He woke with a start, having a