In her capacity of editress Francie had added: “This is surely a curious little sidelight on the nature of our Victorian foremothers.”

“F. F.”

In 1920 Soames Forsyte on the death of his uncle Timothy, proved that will which but for the law against accumulations would in course of time have produced such astounding results. He had been at pains to explain to Timothy how, owing to that law, what Timothy intended would not come about; but Timothy had merely stared at him very hard and said: “Rubbage! Make it so!” And Soames had made it. In any case the legal limit of accumulation would be reached, and that was as near to what the old chap wanted as could be. When, as executor, he came to the examination of the papers left behind by Timothy, he had fresh confirmation of his uncle’s lifelong passion for safety. Practically nothing had been destroyed. Seventy years and more of receipted bills, and cheque books with the paid-out cheque forms carefully returned to them in order of date, were found, and—since Timothy had been spoon-fed and incapable of paying a bill since before the War—burned out of hand. There was a mass of papers referring to the publishing business, which he had abandoned for Consols in 1879, and which had died, very fortunately for Soames, a natural death not long after. All these were committed to the fire. But then—a far more serious matter—there were whole drawers full of private letters and odds and ends not only Timothy’s, but of the three sisters who had made house with him since their father’s death in 1850. And with that conscientiousness, which ever distinguished him in an unconscientious world, Soames had decided to go through them first and destroy them afterwards. It was no mean task. He sneezed his way through it doggedly, reading the spidery calligraphy of the Victorian era, in bundle after dirty bundle of yellowed letters; cheered slightly now and then, among the mass of sententious gossip, by little streaks of side light on this member of his family or on that. The fifteenth evening of his perusal, for he had had the lot conveyed by motor lorry down to Mapledurham, he came on the letter which forms the starting point of this narration. It was enclosed in a yellowed envelope bearing the address, “Miss Hatty Beecher;” was in Timothy’s handwriting; bore the date, “May the twenty-seventh 1851,” and had obviously never been posted. Hatty Beecher! Why that had been the maiden name of Hatty Chessman, the lively, elderly, somewhat raddled widow and friend of the family in his youth. He remembered her death in the Spring of 1899. She had left his Aunts Juley and Hester five hundred pounds apiece. Soames began to read the letter with an ashamed curiosity, though it was nearly seventy years old and everybody dead; he continued to read it with a sort of emotion, as of one coming on blood in the tissue of a mummy.

With a faint grin Soames dropped the yellowed letter—six years older than himself—on his knee, and sat brooding. Poor old Timothy! And he had never sent it. Why not? Never ‘put it to the touch’ after all. If he remembered Hatty Chessman the old boy had been well out of it. Bit of a dasher Hatty Chessman in her time, from all that he had heard!

Still! There was the letter! Irrefutable evidence that Timothy had been human once upon a time. 1851?—the year of the Great Exhibition! Yes, they had been in the Bayswater Road by then, Timothy and the girls, Ann, Juley, Hester! Fancy a thing like that letter coming out of the blue at this time of day! What had Hatty done that he didn’t send the letter? Or what had Timothy done? Eaten something that disagreed with him—he shouldn’t wonder, had a scare of some sort. The envelope had just Hatty’s name but no address; was she then staying with them at the time or what—she had been a great friend, he knew, of Juley and of Hester! He put the letter back into its yellowed envelope with Timothy’s cypher in an oval medallion on the flap, dropped it into a tray, and went on with his task of conning over his Uncle’s remains.

Hallo! What were these?

Three thin red notebooks held together by a bit of dingy rainbow-coloured ribbon tied in a bow. Whose writing? Aunt Ann’s undoubtedly, more upright, more distinct than any other in the family. A diary, by George, and pretty old! Yes, begun when they went to ‘the Nook,’ “November 1850,” and going on to “1855,” the year that old Aunt Juley married Septimus Small. It would be old-fashioned twaddle! But suddenly Soames’ eye lighted again on the yellowed letter in the tray and taking up the second volume of the diary he turned its pages till he came to April 1851.

“April 3. We are all agog about the Great Exhibition that is to be opened in Hyde Park. James says he doesn’t know, but he thinks it will be a failure. They are making a great to-do and the Park does not look itself at all. It has quite upset dear Timothy. He is afraid that it will attract many rogues and foreigners and that our house will be burgled. He has become very distrait and never talks to us about his business, but we think from what James said on Sunday that he must be in doubt whether or not to publish a new edition of the rhymes of Dr. Watts. They are very improving, but James says that Timothy does not know whether anyone will want to read them at this time of day.” ‘H’m!’ thought Soames: ‘“How doth the little busy bee!”’ If Timothy had really baulked at republishing that dreadful stuff, he must have regretted it all his life!’ His eyes scanned on over the thin precise pages till he came to this:

“May 3. Hatty Beecher (‘Ah! here it was!’) came on April 30th to spend a month with us. She is a fine figure of a girl and has become quite buxom. We all went to the opening of the Exhibition. It was such a crowd, and the dear little Queen was so becomingly dressed. It was an occasion I shall never forget. How the people cheered! Timothy attended us, he seems quite taken with Hatty, he can hardly look at her. I hope she is really nice. Hester and Juley are already full of her praises. They all went to walk in the Park today, and look at the crowd going into the Exhibition, though there was a windy drizzle; but as our dear father used to say it was only ‘pride of the morning,’ for it soon cleared, and the sun shone…