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diff --git a/old/toltg10.txt b/old/toltg10.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..d62f50a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/toltg10.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11751 @@ +The Project Gutenberg Etext of To Let, by John Galsworthy +(#35 in our series by John Galsworthy) + +Copyright laws are changing all over the world, be sure to check +the laws for your country before redistributing these files!!! + +Please take a look at the important information in this header. +We encourage you to keep this file on your own disk, keeping an +electronic path open for the next readers. + +Please do not remove this. + +This should be the first thing seen when anyone opens the book. +Do not change or edit it without written permission. 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IN GREEN STREET + V. PURELY FORSYTE AFFAIRS + VI. SOAMES' PRIVATE LIFE + VII. JUNE TAKES A HAND + VIII. THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH + IX. FAT IN THE FIRE + X. DECISION + XI. TIMOTHY PROPHESIES + +PART III + + I. OLD JOLYON WALKS + II. CONFESSION + III. IRENE! + IV. SOAMES COGITATES + V. THE FIXED IDEA + VI. DESPERATE + VII. EMBASSY + VIII. THE DARK TUNE + IX. UNDER THE OAK-TREE + X. FLEUR'S WEDDING + XI. THE LAST OF THE FORSYTES + + + + +PART I + + +I + +ENCOUNTER + + +Soames Forsyte emerged from the Knightsbridge Hotel, where he was +staying, in the afternoon of the 12th of May, 1920, with the +intention of visiting a collection of pictures in a Gallery off +Cork Street, and looking into the Future. He walked. Since the War +he never took a cab if he could help it. Their drivers were, in +his view, an uncivil lot, though, now that the War was over and +supply beginning to exceed demand again, getting more civil in +accordance with the custom of human nature. Still, he had not +forgiven them, deeply identifying them with gloomy memories and, +now dimly, like all members of their class, with revolution. The +considerable anxiety he had passed through during the War, and the +more considerable anxiety he had since undergone in the Peace, had +produced psychological consequences in a tenacious nature. He had, +mentally, so frequently experienced ruin, that he had ceased to +believe in its material probability. Paying away four thousand a +year in income and super-tax, one could not very well be worse +off! A fortune of a quarter of a million, encumbered only by a +wife and one daughter, and very diversely invested, afforded +substantial guarantee even against that "wildcat notion"--a levy +on capital. And as to confiscation of war profits, he was entirely +in favor of it, for he had none, and "serve the beggars right!" +The price of pictures, moreover, had, if anything, gone up, and he +had done better with his collection since the War began than ever +before. Air-raids, also, had acted beneficially on a spirit +congenitally cautious, and hardened a character already dogged. To +be in danger of being entirely dispersed inclined one to be less +apprehensive of the more partial dispersions involved in levies +and taxation, while the habit of condemning the impudence of the +Germans had led naturally to condemning that of Labor, if not +openly at least in the sanctuary of his soul. + +He walked. There was, moreover, time to spare, for Fleur was to +meet him at the Gallery at four o'clock, and it was as yet but +half past two. It was good for him to walk--his liver was a +little constricted and his nerves rather on edge. His wife was +always out when she was in Town, and his daughter WOULD flibberty- +gibbet all over the place like most young women since the War. +Still, he must be thankful that she had been too young to do +anything in that War itself. Not, of course, that he had not +supported the War from its inception, with all his soul, but +between that and supporting it with the bodies of his wife and +daughter, there had been a gap fixed by something old-fashioned +within him which abhorred emotional extravagance. He had, for +instance, strongly objected to Annette, so attractive, and in 1914 +only thirty-five, going to her native France, her "chere patrie" +as, under the stimulus of war, she had begun to call it, to nurse +her "braves poilus," forsooth! Ruining her health and her looks! +As if she were really a nurse! He had put a stopper on it. Let her +do needlework for them at home, or knit! She had not gone, +therefore, and had never been quite the same woman since. A bad +tendency of hers to mock at him, not openly, but in continual +little ways, had grown. As for Fleur, the War had resolved the +vexed problem whether or not she should go to school. She was +better away from her mother in her war mood, from the chance of +air-raids, and the impetus to do extravagant things; so he had +placed her in a seminary as far West as had seemed to him +compatible with excellence, and had missed her horribly. Fleur! He +had never regretted the somewhat outlandish name by which at her +birth he had decided so suddenly to call her--marked concession +though it had been to the French. Fleur! A pretty name--a pretty +child! But restless--too restless; and wilful! Knowing her power +too over her father! Soames often reflected on the mistake it was +to dote on his daughter. To get old and dote! Sixty-five! He was +getting on; but he didn't feel it, for, fortunately perhaps, +considering Annette's youth and good looks, his second marriage +had turned out a cool affair. He had known but one real passion in +his life--for that first wife of his--Irene. Yes, and that +fellow, his Cousin Jolyon, who had gone off with her, was looking +very shaky, they said. No wonder, at seventy-two, after twenty +years of a third marriage! + +Soames paused a moment in his march to lean over the railings of +the Row. A suitable spot for reminiscence, half-way between that +house in Park Lane which had seen his birth and his parents' +deaths, and the little house in Montpellier Square where thirty- +five years ago he had enjoyed his first edition of matrimony. Now, +after twenty years of his second edition, that old tragedy seemed +to him like a previous existence--which had ended when Fleur was +born in place of the son he had hoped for. For many years he had +ceased regretting, even vaguely, the son who had not been born; +Fleur filled the bill in his heart. After all, she bore his name; +and he was not looking forward at all to the time when she would +change it. Indeed, if he ever thought of such a calamity, it was +seasoned by the vague feeling that he could make her rich enough +to purchase perhaps and extinguish the name of the fellow who +married her--why not, since, as it seemed, women were equal to men +nowadays? And Soames, secretly convinced that they were not, +passed his curved hand over his face vigorously, till it reached +the comfort of his chin. Thanks to abstemious habits, he had not +grown fat and flabby; his nose was pale and thin, his grey +moustache close-clipped, his eyesight unimpaired. A slight stoop +closened and corrected the expansion given to his face by the +heightening of his forehead in the recession of his grey hair. +Little change had Time wrought in the "warmest" of the young +Forsytes, as the last of the old Forsytes--Timothy--now in his +hundred and first year, would have phrased it. + +The shade from the plane-trees fell on his neat Homburg hat; he +had given up top hats--it was no use attracting attention to +wealth in days like these. Plane-trees! His thoughts travelled +sharply to Madrid--the Easter before the War, when, having to make +up his mind about that Goya picture, he had taken a voyage of +discovery to study the painter on his spot. The fellow had +impressed him--great range, real genius! Highly as the chap +ranked, he would rank even higher before they had finished with +him. The second Goya craze would be greater even than the first; +oh, yes! And he had bought. On that visit he had--as never before-- +commissioned a copy of a fresco painting called "La Vendimia," +wherein was the figure of a girl with an arm akimbo, who had +reminded him of his daughter. He had it now in the Gallery at +Mapledurham, and rather poor it was--you couldn't copy Goya. He +would still look at it, however, if his daughter were not there, +for the sake of something irresistibly reminiscent in the light, +erect balance of the figure, the width between the arching +eyebrows, the eager dreaming of the dark eyes. Curious that Fleur +should have dark eyes, when his own were grey--no pure Forsyte had +brown eyes--and her mother's blue! But of course her grandmother +Lamotte's eyes were dark as treacle! + +He began to walk on again towards Hyde Park Corner. No greater +change in all England than in the Row! Born almost within hail of +it, he could remember it from 1860 on. Brought there as a child +between the crinolines to stare at tight-trousered dandies in +whiskers, riding with a cavalry seat; to watch the doffing of +curly-brimmed and white top hats; the leisurely air of it all, and +the little bow-legged man in a long red waistcoat who used to come +among the fashion with dogs on several strings, and try to sell +one to his mother: King Charles spaniels, Italian greyhounds, +affectionate to her crinoline--you never saw them now. You saw no +quality of any sort, indeed, just working people sitting in dull +rows with nothing to stare at but a few young bouncing females in +pot hats, riding astride, or desultory Colonials charging up and +down on dismal-looking hacks; with, here and there, little girls +on ponies, or old gentlemen jogging their livers, or an orderly +trying a great galumphing cavalry horse; no thoroughbreds, no +grooms, no bowing, no scraping, no gossip--nothing; only the +trees the same--the trees indifferent to the generations and +declensions of mankind. A democratic England--dishevelled, +hurried, noisy, and seemingly without an apex. And that something +fastidious in the soul of Soames turned over within him. Gone for +ever, the close borough of rank and polish! Wealth there was--oh, +yes! wealth--he himself was a richer man than his father had ever +been; but manners, flavour, quality, all gone, engulfed in one +vast, ugly, shoulder-rubbing, petrol-smelling Cheerio. Little +half-beaten pockets of gentility and caste lurking here and there, +dispersed and chetif, as Annette would say; but nothing ever again +firm and coherent to look up to. And into this new hurly-burly of +bad manners and loose morals his daughter--flower of his life--was +flung! And when those Labour chaps got power--if they ever did-- +the worst was yet to come! + +He passed out under the archway, at last no longer--thank +goodness!--disfigured by the gun-grey of its search-light. 'They'd +better put a search-light on to where they're all going,' he +thought, 'and light up their precious democracy!' And he directed +his steps along the Club fronts of Piccadilly. George Forsyte, of +course, would be sitting in the bay window of the Iseeum. The chap +was so big now that he was there nearly all his time, like some +immovable, sardonic, humorous eye noting the decline of men and +things. And Soames hurried, ever constitutionally uneasy beneath +his cousin's glance. George, who, as he had heard, had written a +letter signed "Patriot" in the middle of the War, complaining of +the Government's hysteria in docking the oats of race-horses. Yes, +there he was, tall, ponderous, neat, clean-shaven, with his smooth +hair, hardly thinned, smelling, no doubt, of the best hair-wash, +and a pink paper in his hand. Well, he didn't change! And for +perhaps the first time in his life Soames felt a kind of sympathy +tapping in his waistcoat for that sardonic kinsman. With his +weight, his perfectly parted hair, and bull-like gaze, he was a +guarantee that the old order would take some shifting yet. He saw +George move the pink paper as if inviting him to ascend--the chap +must want to ask something about his property. It was still under +Soames's control; for in the adoption of a sleeping partnership at +that painful period twenty years back when he had divorced Irene, +Soames had found himself almost insensibly retaining control of +all purely Forsyte affairs. + +Hesitating for just a moment, he nodded and went in. Since the +death of his brother-in-law Montague Dartie, in Paris, which no +one had quite known what to make of, except that it was certainly +not suicide--the Iseeum Club had seemed more respectable to +Soames. George, too, he knew, had sown the last of his wild oats, +and was committed definitely to the joys of the table, eating only +of the very best so as to keep his weight down, and owning, as he +said, "just one or two old screws to give me an interest in life." +He joined his cousin, therefore, in the bay window without the +embarrassing sense of indiscretion he had been used to feel up +there. George put out a well-kept hand. + +"Haven't seen you since the War," he said. "How's your wife?" + +"Thanks," said Soames coldly, "well enough." + +Some hidden jest curved, for a moment, George's fleshy face, and +gloated from his eye. + +"That Belgian chap, Profond," he said, "is a member here now. He's +a rum customer." + +"Quite!" muttered Soames. "What did you want to see me about?" + +"Old Timothy; he might go off the hooks at any moment. I suppose +he's made his Will." + +"Yes." + +"Well, you or somebody ought to give him a look up--last of the +old lot; he's a hundred, you know. They say he's like a mummy. +Where are you goin' to put him? He ought to have a pyramid by +rights." + +Soames shook his head. "Highgate, the family vault." + +"Well, I suppose the old girls would miss him, if he was anywhere +else. They say he still takes an interest in food. He might last +on, you know. Don't we GET anything for the old Forsytes? Ten of +them--average age eighty-eight--I worked it out. That ought to be +equal to triplets." + +"Is that all?" said Soames. "I must be getting on." + +'You unsociable devil,' George's eyes seemed to answer. + +"Yes, that's all: Look him up in his mausoleum--the old chap might +want to prophesy." The grin died on the rich curves of his face, +and he added: "Haven't you attorneys invented a way yet of dodging +this damned income tax? It hits the fixed inherited income like +the very deuce. I used to have two thousand five hundred a year; +now I've got a beggarly fifteen hundred, and the price of living +doubled." + +"Ah!" murmured Soames, "the turf's in danger." + +Over George's face moved a gleam of sardonic self-defence. + +"Well," he said, "they brought me up to do nothing, and here I am +in the sere and yellow, getting poorer every day. These Labour +chaps mean to have the lot before they've done. What are you going +to do for a living when it comes? I shall work a six-hour day +teaching politicians how to see a joke. Take my tip, Soames; go +into Parliament, make sure of your four hundred--and employ me." + +And, as Soames retired, he resumed his seat in the bay window. + +Soames moved along Piccadilly deep in reflections excited by his +cousin's words. He himself had always been a worker and a saver, +George always a drone and a spender; and yet, if confiscation once +began, it was he--the worker and the saver--who would be looted! +That was the negation of all virtue, the overturning of all +Forsyte principles. Could civilisation be built on any other? He +did not think so. Well, they wouldn't confiscate his pictures, for +they wouldn't know their worth. But what would they be worth, if +these maniacs once began to milk capital? A drug on the market. 'I +don't care about myself,' he thought; 'I could live on five +hundred a year, and never know the difference, at my age.' But +Fleur! This fortune, so wisely invested, these treasures so +carefully chosen and amassed, were all for her. And if it should +turn out that he couldn't give or leave them to her--well, life +had no meaning, and what was the use of going in to look at this +crazy, futuristic stuff with the view of seeing whether it had any +future? + +Arriving at the Gallery off Cork Street, however, he paid his +shilling, picked up a catalogue, and entered. Some ten persons +were prowling round. Soames took steps and came on what looked to +him like a lamp-post bent by collision with a motor omnibus. It +was advanced some three paces from the wall, and was described in +his catalogue as "Jupiter." He examined it with curiosity, having +recently turned some of his attention to sculpture. 'If that's +Jupiter,' he thought, 'I wonder what Juno's like.' And suddenly he +saw her, opposite. She appeared to him like nothing so much as a +pump with two handles, lightly clad in snow. He was still gazing +at her, when two of the prowlers halted on his left. "Epatant!" he +heard one say. + +"Jargon!" growled Soames to himself. + +The other's boyish voice replied: + +"Missed it, old bean; he's pulling your leg. When Jove and Juno +created he them, he was saying: 'I'll see how much these fools +will swallow.' And they've lapped up the lot." + +"You young duffer! Vospovitch is an innovator. Don't you see that +he's brought satire into sculpture? The future of plastic art, of +music, painting, and even architecture, has set in satiric. It was +bound to. People are tired--the bottom's tumbled out of +sentiment." + +"Well, I'm quite equal to taking a little interest in beauty. I +was through the War. You've dropped your handkerchief, sir." + +Soames saw a handkerchief held out in front of him. He took it +with some natural suspicion, and approached it to his nose. It had +the right scent--of distant Eau de Cologne--and his initials in a +corner. Slightly reassured, he raised his eyes to the young man's +face. It had rather fawn-like ears, a laughing mouth, with half a +toothbrush growing out of it on each side, and small lively eyes, +above a normally dressed appearance. + +"Thank you," he said; and moved by a sort of irritation, added: +"Glad to hear you like beauty; that's rare, nowadays." + +"I dote on it," said the young man; "but you and I are the last of +the old guard, sir." + +Soames smiled. + +"If you really care for pictures," he said, "here's my card. I can +show you some quite good ones any Sunday, if you're down the river +and care to look in." + +"Awfully nice of you, sir. I'll drop in like a bird. My name's +Mont-Michael." And he took off his hat. + +Soames, already regretting his impulse, raised his own slightly in +response, with a downward look at the young man's companion, who +had a purple tie, dreadful little slug-like whiskers, and a +scornful look--as if he were a poet! + +It was the first indiscretion he had committed for so long that he +went and sat down in an alcove. What had possessed him to give his +card to a rackety young fellow, who went about with a thing like +that? And Fleur, always at the back of his thoughts, started out +like a filagree figure from a clock when the hour strikes. On the +screen opposite the alcove was a large canvas with a great many +square tomato-colored blobs on it, and nothing else, so far as +Soames could see from where he sat. He looked at his catalogue: +"No. 32--'The Future Town'--Paul Post." 'I suppose that's satiric +too,' he thought. 'What a thing!' But his second impulse was more +cautious. It did not do to condemn hurriedly. There had been those +stripey, streaky creations of Monet's, which had turned out such +trumps; and then the stippled school; and Gauguin. Why, even since +the Post-Impressionists there had been one or two painters not to +be sneezed at. During the thirty-eight years of his connoisseur's +life, indeed, he had marked so many "movements," seen the tides of +taste and technique so ebb and flow, that there was really no +telling anything except that there was money to be made out of +every change of fashion. This too might quite well be a case where +one must subdue primordial instinct, or lose the market. He got up +and stood before the picture, trying hard to see it with the eyes +of other people. Above the tomato blobs was what he took to be a +sunset, till some one passing said: "He's got the airplanes +wonderfully, don't you think!" Below the tomato blobs was a band +of white with vertical black stripes, to which he could assign no +meaning whatever, till some one else came by, murmuring: "What +expression he gets with his foreground!" Expression? Of what? +Soames went back to his seat. The thing was "rich," as his father +would have said, and he wouldn't give a damn for it. Expression! +Ah! they were all Expressionists now, he had heard, on the +Continent. So it was coming here too, was it? He remembered the +first wave of influenza in 1887--or 8--hatched in China, so they +said. He wondered where this--this Expressionism--had been +hatched. The thing was a regular disease! + +He had become conscious of a woman and a youth standing between +him and the "Future Town." Their backs were turned; but very +suddenly Soames put his catalogue before his face, and drawing his +hat forward, gazed through the slit between. No mistaking that +back, elegant as ever though the hair above had gone grey. Irene! +His divorced wife--Irene! And this, no doubt, was her son--by that +fellow Jolyon Forsyte--their boy, six months older than his own +girl! And mumbling over in his mind the bitter days of his +divorce, he rose to get out of sight, but quickly sat down again. +She had turned her head to speak to her boy; her profile was still +so youthful that it made her grey hair seem powdery, as if fancy- +dressed; and her lips were smiling as Soames, first possessor of +them, had never seen them smile. Grudgingly he admitted her still +beautiful, and in figure almost as young as ever. And how that boy +smiled back at her! Emotion squeezed Soames' heart. The sight +infringed his sense of justice. He grudged her that boy's smile-- +it went beyond what Fleur gave him, and it was undeserved. Their +son might have been his son; Fleur might have been her daughter, +if she had kept straight! He lowered his catalogue. If she saw +him, all the better! A reminder of her conduct in the presence of +her son, who probably knew nothing of it, would be a salutary +touch from the finger of that Nemesis which surely must soon or +late visit her! Then, half-conscious that such a thought was +extravagant for a Forsyte of his age, Soames took out his watch. +Past four! Fleur was late. She had gone to his niece Imogen +Cardigan's, and there they would keep her smoking cigarettes and +gossiping, and that. He heard the boy laugh, and say eagerly: "I +say, Mum, is this one of Auntie June's lame ducks?" + +"Paul Post--I believe it is, darling." + +The word produced a little shock in Soames; he had never heard her +use it. And then she saw him. His eyes must have had in them +something of George Forsyte's sardonic look; for her gloved hand +crisped the folds of her frock, her eyebrows rose, her face went +stony. She moved on. + +"It IS a caution," said the boy, catching her arm again. + +Soames stared after them. That boy was good-looking, with a +Forsyte chin, and eyes deep-grey, deep in; but with something +sunny, like a glass of old sherry spilled over him; his smile +perhaps, his hair. Better than they deserved--those two! They +passed from his view into the next room, and Soames continued to +regard the Future Town, but saw it not. A little smile snarled up +his lips. He was despising the vehemence of his own feelings after +all these years. Ghosts! And yet as one grew old--was there +anything but what was ghost-like left? Yes, there was Fleur! He +fixed his eyes on the entrance. She was due; but she would keep +him waiting, of course! And suddenly he became aware of a sort of +human breeze--a short, slight form clad in a sea-green djibbah +with a metal belt and a fillet binding unruly red-gold hair all +streaked with grey. She was talking to the Gallery attendants, and +something familiar riveted his gaze--in her eyes, her chin, her +hair, her spirit--something which suggested a thin Skye terrier +just before its dinner. Surely June Forsyte! His cousin June--and +coming straight to his recess! She sat down beside him, deep in +thought, took out a tablet, and made a pencil note. Soames sat +unmoving. A confounded thing cousinship! "Disgusting!" he heard +her murmur; then, as if resenting the presence of an overhearing +stranger, she looked at him. The worst had happened. + +"Soames!" + +Soames turned his head a very little. + +"How are YOU?" he said. "Haven't seen you for twenty years." + +"No. Whatever made YOU come here?" + +"My sins," said Soames. "What stuff!" + +"Stuff? Oh, yes--of course; it hasn't ARRIVED yet." + +"It never will," said Soames; "it must be making a dead loss." + +"Of course it is." + +"How d'you know?" + +"It's my Gallery." + +Soames sniffed from sheer surprise. + +"Yours? What on earth makes you run a show like this?" + +"_I_ don't treat Art as if it were grocery." + +Soames pointed to the Future Town. "Look at that! Who's going to +live in a town like that, or with it on his walls?" + +June contemplated the picture for a moment. "It's a vision," she +said. + +"The deuce!" + +There was silence, then June rose. 'Crazy-looking creature!' he +thought. + +"Well," he said, "you'll find your young stepbrother here with a +woman I used to know. If you take my advice, you'll close this +exhibition." + +June looked back at him. "Oh! You Forsyte!" she said, and moved +on. About her light, fly-away figure, passing so suddenly away, +was a look of dangerous decisions. Forsyte! Of course, he was a +Forsyte! And so was she! But from the time when, as a mere girl, +she brought Bosinney into his life to wreck it, he had never hit +it off with June--and never would! And here she was, unmarried to +this day, owning a Gallery!... And suddenly it came to Soames how +little he knew now of his own family. The old aunts at Timothy's +had been dead so many years; there was no clearing-house for news. +What had they all done in the War? Young Roger's boy had been +wounded, St. John Hayman's second son killed; young Nicholas' +eldest had got an O. B. E., or whatever they gave them. They had +all joined up somehow, he believed. That boy of Jolyon's and +Irene's, he supposed, had been too young; his own generation, of +course, too old, though Giles Hayman had driven a car for the Red +Cross--and Jesse Hayman been a special constable--those "Dromios" +had always been of a sporting type! As for himself, he had given a +motor ambulance, read the papers till he was sick of them, passed +through much anxiety, invested in War Bonds, bought no clothes, +lost seven pounds in weight; he didn't know what more he could +have done at his age. Indeed, it struck him that he and his family +had taken this war very differently to that affair with the Boers, +which had been supposed to tax all the resources of the Empire. In +that old war, of course, his nephew Val Dartie had been wounded, +that fellow Jolyon's first son had died of enteric, "the Dromios" +had gone out on horses, and June had been a nurse; but all that +had seemed in the nature of a portent, while in THIS war everybody +had done "their bit," so far as he could make out, as a matter of +course. It seemed to show the growth of something or other--or +perhaps the decline of something else. Had the Forsytes become +less individual, or more Imperial, or less provincial? Or was it +simply that one hated Germans?... Why didn't Fleur come, so that +he could get away? He saw those three return together from the +other room and pass back along the far side of the screen. The boy +was standing before the Juno now. And, suddenly, on the other side +of her, Soames saw--his daughter with eyebrows raised, as well +they might be. He could see her eyes glint sideways at the boy, +and the boy look back at her. Then Irene slipped her hand through +his arm, and drew him on. Soames saw him glancing round, and Fleur +looking after them as the three went out. + +A voice said cheerfully: "Bit thick, isn't it, sir?" + +The young man who had handed him his handkerchief was again +passing. Soames nodded. + +"I don't know what we're coming to." + +"Oh! That's all right, sir," answered the young man cheerfully; +"they don't either." + +Fleur's voice said, precisely as if he had been keeping her +waiting: + +"Hallo, Father! There you are!" + +The young man, snatching off his hat, passed on. + +"Well," said Soames, looking her up and down, "you're a punctual +sort of young woman!" + +This treasured possession of his life was of medium height and +color, with short, dark-chestnut hair; her wide-apart brown eyes +were set in whites so clear that they glinted when they moved, and +yet in repose were almost dreamy under very white, black-lashed +lids, held over them in a sort of suspense. She had a charming +profile, and nothing of her father in her face save a decided +chin. Aware that his expression was softening as he looked at her, +Soames frowned to preserve the unemotionalism proper to a Forsyte. +He knew she was only too inclined to take advantage of his +weakness. + +Slipping her hand under his arm, she said: + +"Who was that?" + +"He picked up my handkerchief. We talked about the pictures." + +"You're not going to buy THAT, Father?" + +"No," said Soames grimly; "nor that Juno you've been looking at." + +Fleur dragged at his arm. "Oh! Let's go! It's a ghastly show." + +In the doorway they passed the young man called Mont and his +partner. But Soames had hung out a board marked "Trespassers will +be prosecuted," and he barely acknowledged the young fellow's +salute. + +"Well," he said in the street, "whom did you meet at Imogen's?" + +"Aunt Winifred, and that Monsieur Profond." + +"Oh!" muttered Soames; "that chap! What does your aunt see in +him?" + +"I don't know. He looks pretty deep--mother says she likes him." + +Soames grunted. + +"Cousin Val and his wife were there, too." + +"What!" said Soames. "I thought they were back in South Africa." + +"Oh, no! They've sold their farm. Cousin Val is going to train +race-horses on the Sussex Downs. They've got a jolly old manor- +house; they asked me down there." + +Soames coughed: the news was distasteful to him. "What's his wife +like now?" + +"Very quiet, but nice, I think." + +Soames coughed again. "He's a rackety chap, your cousin Val." + +"Oh! no, Father; they're awfully devoted. I promised to go-- +Saturday to Wednesday next." + +"Training race-horses!" said Soames. It was bad enough, but not +the reason for his distaste. Why the deuce couldn't his nephew +have stayed out in South Africa? His own divorce had been bad +enough, without his nephew's marriage to the daughter of the co- +respondent; a half-sister too of June, and of that boy whom Fleur +had just been looking at from under the pump-handle. If he didn't +look out, Fleur would come to know all about that old disgrace! +Unpleasant things! They were round him this afternoon like a swarm +of bees! + +"I don't like it!" he said. + +"I want to see the race-horses," murmured Fleur; "and they've +promised I shall ride. Cousin Val can't walk much, you know; but +he can ride perfectly. He's going to show me their gallops." + +"Racing!" said Soames. "It's a pity the War didn't knock that on +the head. He's taking after his father, I'm afraid." + +"I don't know anything about his father." + +"No," said Soames grimly. "He took an interest in horses and broke +his neck in Paris, walking down-stairs. Good riddance for your +aunt." He frowned, recollecting the inquiry into those stairs +which he had attended in Paris six years ago, because Montague +Dartie could not attend it himself--perfectly normal stairs in a +house where they played baccarat. Either his winnings or the way +he had celebrated them had gone to his brother-in-law's head. The +French procedure had been very loose; he had had a lot of trouble +with it. + +A sound from Fleur distracted his attention. "Look! The people who +were in the Gallery with us." + +"What people?" muttered Soames, who knew perfectly well. + +"I think that woman's beautiful." + +"Come into this pastry-cook's," said Soames abruptly, and +tightening his grip on her arm, he turned into a confectioner's. +It was--for him--a surprising thing to do, and he said rather +anxiously: "What will you have?" + +"Oh! I don't want anything. I had a cocktail and a tremendous +lunch." + +"We MUST have something now we're here," muttered Soames, keeping +hold of her arm. + +"Two teas," he said; "and two of those nougat things." + +But no sooner was his body seated than his soul sprang up. Those +three--those three were coming in! He heard Irene say something to +her boy, and his answer: + +"Oh! no, Mum; this place is all right. My stunt." And the three +sat down. + +At that moment, most awkward of his existence, crowded with ghosts +and shadows from his past, in presence of the only two women he +had ever loved--his divorced wife and his daughter by her +successor--Soames was not so much afraid of THEM as of his cousin +June. She might make a scene--she might introduce those two +children--she was capable of anything. He bit too hastily at the +nougat, and it stuck to his plate. Working at it with his finger, +he glanced at Fleur. She was masticating dreamily, but her eyes +were on the boy. The Forsyte in him said: "Think, feel, and you're +done for!" And he wiggled his finger desperately. Plate! Did +Jolyon wear a plate? Did that woman wear a plate? Time had been +when he had seen her wearing nothing! That was something, anyway, +which had never been stolen from him. And she knew it, though she +might sit there calm and self-possessed, as if she had never been +his wife. An acid humor stirred in his Forsyte blood; a subtle +pain divided by hair's-breadth from pleasure. If only June did not +suddenly bring her hornets about his ears! The boy was talking. + +"Of course, Auntie June,"--so he called his half-sister "Auntie," +did he?--well, she must be fifty, if she was a day!--"it's jolly +good of you to encourage them. Only--hang it all!" Soames stole a +glance. Irene's startled eyes were bent watchfully on her boy. +She--she had these devotions--for Bosinney--for that boy's father-- +for this boy! He touched Fleur's arm, and said: + +"Well, have you had enough?" + +"One more, Father, please." + +She would be sick! He went to the counter to pay. When he turned +round again he saw Fleur standing near the door, holding a +handkerchief which the boy had evidently just handed to her. + +"F.F.," he heard her say. "Fleur Forsyte--it's mine all right. +Thank you ever so." + +Good God! She had caught the trick from what he'd told her in the +Gallery--monkey! + +"Forsyte? Why--that's my name too. Perhaps we're cousins." + +"Really! We must be. There aren't any others. I live at +Mapledurham; where do you?" + +"Robin Hill." + +Question and answer had been so rapid that all was over before he +could lift a finger. He saw Irene's face alive with startled +feeling, gave the slightest shake of his head, and slipped his arm +through Fleur's. + +"Come along!" he said. + +She did not move. + +"Didn't you hear, Father? Isn't it queer--our name's the same. Are +we cousins?" + +"What's that?" he said. "Forsyte? Distant, perhaps." + +"My name's Jolyon, sir. Jon, for short." + +"Oh! Ah!" said Soames. "Yes. Distant. How are you? Very good of +you. Good-bye!" + +He moved on. + +"Thanks awfully," Fleur was saying. "Au revoir!" + +"Au revoir!" he heard the boy reply. + + + + + +II + +FINE FLEUR FORSYTE + + +Emerging from the "pastry-cook's," Soames' first impulse was to +vent his nerves by saying to his daughter: "Dropping your +handkerchief!" to which her reply might well be: "I picked that up +from you!" His second impulse therefore was to let sleeping dogs +lie. But she would surely question him. He gave her a sidelong +look, and found she was giving him the same. She said softly: + +"Why don't you like those cousins, Father?" + +Soames lifted the corner of his lip. + +"What made you think that?" + +"Cela se voit." + +'That sees itself!' What a way of putting it! + +After twenty years of a French wife Soames had still little +sympathy with her language; a theatrical affair and connected in +his mind with all the refinements of domestic irony. + +"How?" he asked. + +"You MUST know them; and you didn't make a sign. I saw them +looking at you." + +"I've never seen the boy in my life," replied Soames with perfect +truth. + +"No; but you've seen the others, dear." + +Soames gave her another look. What had she picked up? Had her Aunt +Winifred, or Imogen, or Val Dartie and his wife, been talking? +Every breath of the old scandal had been carefully kept from her +at home, and Winifred warned many times that he wouldn't have a +whisper of it reach her for the world. So far as she ought to +know, he had never been married before. But her dark eyes, whose +southern glint and clearness often almost frightened him, met his +with perfect innocence. + +"Well," he said, "your grandfather and his brother had a quarrel. +The two families don't know each other." + +"How romantic!" + +'Now, what does she mean by that?' he thought. The word was to him +extravagant and dangerous--it was as if she had said: "How jolly!" + +"And they'll continue not to know each other," he added, but +instantly regretted the challenge in those words. Fleur was +smiling. In this age, when young people prided themselves on going +their own ways and paying no attention to any sort of decent +prejudice, he had said the very thing to excite her wilfulness. +Then, recollecting the expression on Irene's face, he breathed +again. + +"What sort of a quarrel?" he heard Fleur say. + +"About a house. It's ancient history for you. Your grandfather +died the day you were born. He was ninety." + +"Ninety? Are there many Forsytes besides those in the Red Book?" + +"I don't know," said Soames. "They're all dispersed now. The old +ones are dead, except Timothy." + +Fleur clasped her hands. + +"Timothy? Isn't that delicious?" + +"Not at all," said Soames. It offended him that she should think +"Timothy" delicious--a kind of insult to his breed. This new +generation mocked at anything solid and tenacious. "You go and see +the old boy. He might want to prophesy." Ah! If Timothy could see +the disquiet England of his greatnephews and greatnieces, he would +certainly give tongue. And involuntarily he glanced up at the +Iseeum; yes--George was still in the window, with the same pink +paper in his hand. + +"Where is Robin Hill, Father?" + +Robin Hill! Robin Hill, round which all that tragedy had centred! +What did she want to know for? + +"In Surrey," he muttered; "not far from Richmond, Why?" + +"Is the house there?" + +"What house?" + +"That they quarrelled about." + +"Yes. But what's all that to do with you? We're going home to- +morrow--you'd better be thinking about your frocks." + +"Bless you! They're all thought about. A family feud? It's like +the Bible, or Mark Twain--awfully exciting. What did YOU do in the +feud, Father?" + +"Never you mind." + +"Oh! But if I'm to keep it up?" + +"Who said you were to keep it up?" + +"You, darling." + +"I? I said it had nothing to do with you." + +"Just what _I_ think, you know; so that's all right." + +She was too sharp for him; FINE, as Annette sometimes called her. +Nothing for it but to distract her attention. + +"There's a bit of rosaline point in here," he said, stopping +before a shop, "that I thought you might like." + +When he had paid for it and they had resumed their progress, Fleur +said: + +"Don't you think that boy's mother is the most beautiful woman of +her age you've ever seen?" + +Soames shivered. Uncanny, the way she stuck to it! + +"I don't know that I noticed her." + +"Dear, I saw the corner of your eye." + +"You see everything--and a great deal more, it seems to me!" + +"What's her husband like? He must be your first cousin, if your +fathers were brothers." + +"Dead, for all I know," said Soames, with sudden vehemence. "I +haven't seen him for twenty years." + +"What was he?" + +"A painter." + +"That's quite jolly." + +The words: "If you want to please me you'll put those people out +of your head," sprang to Soames's lips, but he choked them back-- +he must NOT let her see his feelings. + +"He once insulted me," he said. + +Her quick eyes rested on his face. + +"I see! You didn't avenge it, and it rankles. Poor Father! You let +me have a go!" + +It was really like lying in the dark with a mosquito hovering +above his face. Such pertinacity in Fleur was new to him, and, as +they reached the hotel, he said grimly: + +"I did my best. And that's enough about these people. I'm going up +till dinner." + +"I shall sit here." + +With a parting look at her extended in a chair--a look half- +resentful, half-adoring--Soames moved into the lift and was +transported to their suite on the fourth floor. He stood by the +window of the sitting-room which gave view over Hyde Park, and +drummed a finger on its pane. His feelings were confused, tetchy, +troubled. The throb of that old wound, scarred over by Time and +new interests, was mingled with displeasure and anxiety, and a +slight pain in his chest where that nougat stuff had disagreed. +Had Annette come in? Not that she was any good to him in such a +difficulty. Whenever she had questioned him about his first +marriage, he had always shut her up; she knew nothing of it, save +that it had been the great passion of his life, and his marriage +with herself but domestic makeshift. She had always kept the +grudge of that up her sleeve, as it were, and used it +commercially. He listened. A sound--the vague murmur of a woman's +movements--was coming through the door. She was in. He tapped. + +"Who?" + +"I," said Soames. + +She had been changing her frock, and was still imperfectly +clothed; a striking figure before her glass. There was a certain +magnificence about her arms, shoulders, hair, which had darkened +since he first knew her, about the turn of her neck, the silkiness +of her garments, her dark-lashed, grey-blue eyes--she was +certainly as handsome at forty as she had ever been. A fine +possession, an excellent housekeeper, a sensible and affectionate +enough mother. If only she weren't always so frankly cynical about +the relations between them! Soames, who had no more real affection +for her than she had for him, suffered from a kind of English +grievance, in that she had never dropped even the thinnest veil of +sentiment over their partnership. Like most of his countrymen and +women, he held the view that marriage should be based on mutual +love, but that when from a marriage love had disappeared, or been +found never to have really existed--so that it was manifestly not +based on love--you must not admit it. There it was, and the love +was not--but there you were, and must continue to be! Thus you had +it both ways, and were not tarred with cynicism, realism, and +immorality, like the French. Moreover, it was necessary in the +interests of propriety. He knew that she knew that they both knew +there was no love between them, but he still expected her not to +admit in words or conduct such a thing, and he could never +understand what she meant when she talked of the hypocrisy of the +English. He said: + +"Whom have you got at 'The Shelter' next week?" + +Annette went on touching her lips delicately with salve--he +always wished she wouldn't do that. + +"Your sister Winifred, and the Car-r-digans"--she took up a tiny +stick of black--"and Prosper Profond." + +"That Belgian chap? Why him?" + +Annette turned her neck lazily, touched one eyelash, and said: + +"He amuses Winifred." + +"I want some one to amuse Fleur; she's restive." + +"R-restive?" repeated Annette. "Is it the first time you see that, +my friend? She was born r-restive, as you call it." + +Would she never get that affected roll out of her r's? + +He touched the dress she had taken off, and asked: + +"What have you been doing?" + +Annette looked at him, reflected in her glass. Her just-brightened +lips smiled, rather full, rather ironical. + +"Enjoying myself," she said. + +"Oh!" answered Soames glumly. "Ribbandry, I suppose." + +It was his word for all that incomprehensible running in and out +of shops that women went in for. "Has Fleur got her summer +dresses?" + +"You don't ask if I have mine." + +"You don't care whether I do or not." + +"Quite right. Well, she has; and I have mine--terribly expensive." + +"H'm!" said Soames. "What does that chap Profond do in England?" + +Annette raised the eyebrows she had just finished. + +"He yachts." + +"Ah!" said Soames; "he's a sleepy chap." + +"Sometimes," answered Annette, and her face had a sort of quiet +enjoyment. "But sometimes very amusing." + +"He's got a touch of the tar-brush about him." + +Annette stretched herself. + +"Tar-brush?" she said; "what is that? His mother was Armenienne." + +"That's it, then," muttered Soames. "Does he know anything about +pictures?" + +"He knows about everything--a man of the world." + +"Well, get some one for Fleur. I want to distract her. She's going +off on Saturday to Val Dartie and his wife; I don't like it." + +"Why not?" + +Since the reason could not be explained without going into family +history, Soames merely answered: + +"Racketing about. There's too much of it." + +"I like that little Mrs. Val; she is very quiet and clever." + +"I know nothing of her except--This thing's new." And Soames took +up a creation from the bed. + +Annette received it from him. + +"Would you hook me?" she said. + +Soames hooked. Glancing once over her shoulder into the glass, he +saw the expression on her face, faintly amused, faintly +contemptuous, as much as to say: 'Thanks! You will never learn!' +No, thank God, he wasn't a Frenchman! He finished with a jerk, and +the words: + +"It's too low here." And he went to the door, with the wish to get +away from her and go down to Fleur again. + +Annette stayed a powder-puff, and said with startling suddenness: + +"Que tu es grossier!" + +He knew the expression--he had reason to. The first time she had +used it he had thought it meant "What a grocer you are!" and had +not known whether to be relieved or not when better informed. He +resented the word--he was NOT coarse! If he was coarse, what was +that chap in the room beyond his, who made those horrible noises +in the morning when he cleared his throat, or those people in the +Lounge who thought it well-bred to say nothing but what the whole +world could hear at the top of their voices--quacking inanity! +Coarse, because he had said her dress was low! Well, so it was! He +went out without reply. + +Coming into the Lounge from the far end, he at once saw Fleur +where he had left her. She sat with crossed knees, slowly +balancing a foot in silk stocking and grey shoe, sure sign that +she was dreaming. Her eyes showed it too--they went off like that +sometimes. And then, in a moment, she would come to life, and be +as quick and restless as a monkey. And she knew so much, so self- +assured, and not yet nineteen. What was that odious word? Flapper! +Dreadful young creatures--squealing and squawking and showing +their legs! The worst of them bad dreams, the best of them +powdered angels! Fleur was NOT a flapper, NOT one of those slangy, +ill-bred young females. And yet she was frighteningly self-willed, +and full of life, and determined to enjoy it. Enjoy! The word +brought no puritan terror to Soames; but it brought the terror +suited to his temperament. He had always been afraid to enjoy to- +day for fear he might not enjoy to-morrow so much. And it was +terrifying to feel that his daughter was divested of that +safeguard. The very way she sat in that chair showed it--lost in +her dream. He had never been lost in a dream himself--there was +nothing to be had out of it; and where she got it from he did not +know! Certainly not from Annette! And yet Annette, as a young +girl, when he was hanging about her, had once had a flowery look. +Well, she had lost it now! + +Fleur rose from her chair--swiftly, restlessly, and flung herself +down at a writing-table. Seizing ink and writing-paper, she began +to write as if she had not time to breathe before she got her +letter written. And suddenly she saw him. The air of desperate +absorption vanished, she smiled, waved a kiss, made a pretty face +as if she were a little puzzled and a little bored. + +Ah! She was "fine"--"fine!" + + + + + +III + +AT ROBIN HILL + + +Jolyon Forsyte had spent his boy's nineteenth birthday at Robin +Hill, quietly going into his affairs. He did everything quietly +now, because his heart was in a poor way, and, like all his +family, he disliked the idea of dying. He had never realised how +much till one day, two years ago, he had gone to his doctor about +certain symptoms, and been told: + +"At any moment, on any overstrain." + +He had taken it with a smile--the natural Forsyte reaction against +an unpleasant truth. But with an increase of symptoms in the train +on the way home, he had realised to the full the sentence hanging +over him. To leave Irene, his boy, his home, his work--though he +did little enough work now! To leave them for unknown darkness, +for the unimaginable state, for such nothingness that he would not +even be conscious of wind stirring leaves above his grave, nor of +the scent of earth and grass. Of such nothingness that, however +hard he might try to conceive it, he never could, and must still +hover on the hope that he might see again those he loved! To +realise this was to endure very poignant spiritual anguish. Before +he reached home that day, he had determined to keep it from Irene. +He would have to be more careful than man had ever been, for the +least thing would give it away and make her as wretched as +himself, almost. His doctor had passed him sound in other +respects, and seventy was nothing of an age--he would last a long +time yet, IF HE COULD! + +Such a conclusion, followed out for nearly two years, develops to +the full the subtler side of character. Naturally not abrupt, +except when nervously excited, Jolyon had become control +incarnate. The sad patience of old people who cannot exert +themselves was masked by a smile which his lips preserved even in +private. He devised continually all manner of cover to conceal his +enforced lack of exertion. Mocking himself for so doing, he +counterfeited conversion to the Simple Life; gave up wine and +cigars, drank a special kind of coffee with no coffee in it. In +short, he made himself as safe as a Forsyte in his condition +could, under the rose of his mild irony. Secure from discovery, +since his wife and son had gone up to Town, he had spent the fine +May day quietly arranging his papers, that he might die to-morrow +without inconveniencing any one, giving in fact a final polish to +his terrestrial state. Having docketed and enclosed it in his +father's old Chinese cabinet, he put the key into an envelope, +wrote the words outside: "Key of the Chinese cabinet, wherein will +be found the exact state of me. J.F.," and put it in his breast- +pocket, where it would be, always about him, in case of accident. +Then, ringing for tea, he went out to have it under the old oak-tree. + +All are under sentence of death; Jolyon, whose sentence was but a +little more precise and pressing, had become so used to it, that +he thought habitually, like other people, of other things. He +thought of his son now. + +Jon was nineteen that day, and Jon had come of late to a decision. +Educated neither at Eton like his father, nor at Harrow, like his +dead half-brother, but at one of those establishments which, +designed to avoid the evil and contain the good of the Public +School system, may or may not contain the evil and avoid the good, +Jon had left in April perfectly ignorant of what he wanted to +become. The War, which had promised to go on for ever, had ended +just as he was about to join the army, six months before his time. +It had taken him ever since to get used to the idea that he could +now choose for himself. He had held with his father several +discussions, from which, under a cheery show of being ready for +anything--except, of course, the Church, Army, Law, Stage, Stock +Exchange, Medicine, Business, and Engineering--Jolyon had gathered +rather clearly that Jon wanted to go in for nothing. He himself +had felt exactly like that at the same age. With him that pleasant +vacuity had soon been ended by an early marriage, and its unhappy +consequences. Forced to become an underwriter at Lloyd's he had +regained prosperity before his artistic talent had outcropped. But +having--as the simple say--"learned" his boy to draw pigs and +other animals, he knew that Jon would never be a painter, and +inclined to the conclusion that his aversion from everything else +meant that he was going to be a writer. Holding, however, the view +that experience was necessary even for that profession, there +seemed to Jolyon nothing in the meantime, for Jon, but University, +travel, and perhaps the eating of dinners for the Bar. After that +one would see, or more probably one would not. In face of these +proffered allurements, however, Jon had remained undecided. + +Such discussions with his son had confirmed in Jolyon a doubt +whether the world had really changed. People said that it was a +new age. With the profundity of one not too long for any age, +Jolyon perceived that under slightly different surfaces, the era +was precisely what it had been. Mankind was still divided into two +species: The few who had "speculation" in their souls, and the +many who had none, with a belt of hybrids like himself in the +middle. Jon appeared to have speculation; it seemed to his father +a bad lookout. + +With something deeper, therefore, than his usual smile, he had +heard the boy say, a fortnight ago: "I should like to try farming, +Dad; if it won't cost you too much. It seems to be about the only +sort of life that doesn't hurt anybody; except art, and of course +that's out of the question for me." + +Jolyon subdued his smile, and answered: + +"All right; you shall skip back to where we were under the first +Jolyon in 1760. It'll prove the cycle theory, and incidentally, no +doubt, you may grow a better turnip than he did." + +A little dashed, Jon had answered: + +"But don't you think it's a good scheme, Dad?" + +"Twill serve, my dear; and if you should really take to it, you'll +do more good than most men, which is little enough." + +To himself, however, he had said: "But he won't take to it. I give +him four years. Still, it's healthy, and harmless." + +After turning the matter over and consulting with Irene, he wrote +to his daughter Mrs. Val Dortie, asking if they knew of a farmer +near them on the Downs who would take Jon as an apprentice. +Holly's answer had been enthusiastic. There was an excellent man +quite close; she and Val would love Jon to live with them. + +The boy was due to go to-morrow. + +Sipping weak tea with lemon in it, Jolyon gazed through the leaves +of the old oak-tree at that view which had appeared to him +desirable for thirty-two years. The tree beneath which he sat +seemed not a day older! So young, the little leaves of brownish +gold; so old, the whitey-grey-green of its thick rough trunk, A +tree of memories, which would live on hundreds of years yet, +unless some barbarian cut it down--would see old England out at +the pace things were going! He remembered a night three years +before, when, looking from his window, with his arm close round +Irene, he had watched a German aeroplane hovering, it seemed, +right over the old tree. Next day they had found a bomb hole in a +field on Gage's farm. That was before he knew that he was under +sentence of death. He could almost have wished the bomb had +finished him. It would have saved a lot of hanging about, many +hours of cold fear in the pit of his stomach. He had counted on +living to the normal Forsyte age of eighty-five or more, when +Irene would be seventy. As it was, she would miss him. Still there +was Jon, more important in her life than himself; Jon, who adored +his mother. + +Under that tree, where old Jolyon--waiting for Irene to come to +him across the lawn--had breathed his last, Jolyon wondered, +whimsically, whether, having put everything in such perfect order, +he had not better close his own eyes and drift away. There was +something undignified in parasitically clinging on to the +effortless close of a life wherein he regretted two things only-- +the long division between his father and himself when he was +young, and the lateness of his union with Irene. + +From where he sat he could see a cluster of apple-trees in +blossom. Nothing in Nature moved him so much as fruit-trees in +blossom; and his heart ached suddenly because he might never see +them flower again. Spring! Decidedly no man ought to have to die +while his heart was still young enough to love beauty! Blackbirds +sang recklessly in the shrubbery, swallows were flying high, the +leaves above him glistened; and over the fields was every +imaginable tint of early foliage, burnished by the level sunlight, +away to where the distant 'smoke-bush' blue was trailed along the +horizon. Irene's flowers in their narrow beds had startling +individuality that evening, little deep assertions of gay life. +Only Chinese and Japanese painters, and perhaps Leonardo, had +known how to get that startling little ego into each painted +flower, and bird, and beast--the ego, yet the sense of species, +the universality of life as well. They were the fellows! 'I've +made nothing that will live!' thought Jolyon; 'I've been an +amateur--a mere lover, not a creator. Still, I shall leave Jon +behind me when I go.' What luck that the boy had not been caught +by that ghastly war! He might so easily have been killed, like +poor Jolly twenty years ago out in the Transvaal. Jon would do +something some day--if the Age didn't spoil him--an imaginative +chap! His whim to take up farming was but a bit of sentiment, and +about as likely to last. And just then he saw them coming up the +field: Irene and the boy, walking from the station, with their +arms linked. And, getting up, he strolled down through the new +rose garden to meet them.... + +Irene came into his room that night and sat down by the window. +She sat there without speaking till he said: + +"What is it, my love?" + +"We had an encounter to-day." + +"With whom?" + +"Soames." + +Soames! He had kept that name out of his thoughts these last two +years; conscious that it was bad for him. And, now, his heart +moved in a disconcerting manner, as if it had side-slipped within +his chest. + +Irene went on quietly: + +"He and his daughter were in the Gallery, and afterwards at the +confectioner's where we had tea." + +Jolyon went over and put his hand on her shoulder. + +"How did he look?" + +"Grey; but otherwise much the same." + +"And the daughter?" + +"Pretty. At least, Jon thought so." + +Jolyon's heart side-slipped again. His wife's face had a strained +and puzzled look. + +"You didn't--?" he began. + +"No; but Jon knows their name. The girl dropped her handkerchief +and he picked it up." + +Jolyon sat down on his bed. An evil chance! + +"June was with you. Did she put her foot into it?" + +"No; but it was all very queer and strained, and Jon could see it +was." + +Jolyon drew a long breath, and said: + +"I've often wondered whether we've been right to keep it from him. +He'll find out some day." + +"The later the better, Jolyon; the young have such cheap, hard +judgment. When you were nineteen what would you have thought of +YOUR mother if she had done what I have?" Yes! There it was! Jon +worshipped his mother; and knew nothing of the tragedies, the +inexorable necessities of life, nothing of the prisoned grief in +an unhappy marriage, nothing of jealousy, or passion--knew nothing +at all, as yet! + +"What have you told him?" he said at last. + +"That they were relations, but we didn't know them; that you had +never cared much for your family, or they for you. I expect he +will be asking YOU." + +Jolyon smiled. "This promises to take the place of air-raids," he +said. "After all, one misses them." + +Irene looked up at him. + +"We've known it would come some day." + +He answered her with sudden energy: + +"I could never stand seeing Jon blame you. He shan't do that, even +in thought. He has imagination; and he'll understand if it's put +to him properly. I think I had better tell him before he gets to +know otherwise." + +"Not yet, Jolyon." + +That was like her--she had no foresight, and never went to meet +trouble. Still--who knew?--she might be right. It was ill going +against a mother's instinct. It might be well to let the boy go +on, if possible, till experience had given him some touchstone by +which he could judge the values of that old tragedy; till love, +jealousy, longing, had deepened his charity. All the same, one +must take precautions--every precaution possible! And, long after +Irene had left him, he lay awake turning over those precautions. +He must write to Holly, telling her that Jon knew nothing as yet +of family history. Holly was discreet, she would make sure of her +husband, she would see to it! Jon could take the letter with him +when he went to-morrow. + +And so the day on which he had put the polish on his material +estate died out with the chiming of the stable clock; and another +began for Jolyon in the shadow of a spiritual disorder which could +not be so rounded off and polished.... + +But Jon, whose room had once been his day nursery, lay awake too, +the prey of a sensation disputed by those who have never known it, +"love at first sight!" He had felt it beginning in him with the +glint of those dark eyes gazing into his athwart the Juno--a +conviction that this was his 'dream'; so that what followed had +seemed to him at once natural and miraculous. Fleur! Her name +alone was almost enough for one who was terribly susceptible to +the charm of words. In a homoeopathic age, when boys and girls +were coeducated, and mixed up in early life till sex was almost +abolished, Jon was singularly old-fashioned. His modern school +took boys only, and his holidays had been spent at Robin Hill with +boy friends, or his parents alone. He had never, therefore, been +inoculated against the germs of love by small doses of the poison. +And now in the dark his temperature was mounting fast. He lay +awake, featuring Fleur--as they called it--recalling her words, +especially that "Au revoir!" so soft and sprightly. + +He was still so wide-awake at dawn that he got up, slipped on +tennis shoes, trousers, and a sweater, and in silence crept down- +stairs and out through the study window. It was just light; there +was a smell of grass. 'Fleur!' he thought; 'Fleur!' It was +mysteriously white out-of-doors, with nothing awake except the +birds just beginning to chirp. 'I'll go down into the coppice,' he +thought. He ran down through the fields, reached the pond just as +the sun rose, and passed into the coppice. Bluebells carpeted the +ground there; among the larch-trees there was mystery--the air, as +it were, composed of that romantic quality. Jon sniffed its +freshness, and stared at the bluebells in the sharpening light. +Fleur! It rhymed with her! And she lived at Mapledurham--a jolly +name, too, on the river somewhere. He could find it in the atlas +presently. He would write to her. But would she answer? Oh! She +must. She had said "Au revoir!" Not good-bye! What luck that she +had dropped her handkerchief. He would never have known her but +for that. And the more he thought of that handkerchief, the more +amazing his luck seemed. Fleur! It certainly rhymed with her! +Rhythm thronged his head; words jostled to be joined together; he +was on the verge of a poem. + +Jon remained in this condition for more than half an hour, then +returned to the house, and getting a ladder, climbed in at his +bedroom window out of sheer exhilaration. Then, remembering that +the study window was open, he went down and shut it, first +removing the ladder, so as to obliterate all traces of his +feeling. The thing was too deep to be revealed to mortal soul-- +even to his mother. + + + + + +IV + +THE MAUSOLEUM + + +There are houses whose souls have passed into the limbo of Time, +leaving their bodies in the limbo of London. Such was not quite +the condition of "Timothy's" on the Bayswater Road, for Timothy's +soul still had one foot in Timothy Forsyte's body, and Smither +kept the atmosphere unchanging, of camphor and port wine and house +whose windows are only opened to air it twice a day. + +To Forsyte imagination that house was now a sort of Chinese pill- +box, a series of layers in the last of which was Timothy. One did +not reach him, or so it was reported by members of the family who, +out of old-time habit or absent-mindedness, would drive up once in +a blue moon and ask after their surviving uncle. Such were +Francie, now quite emancipated from God (she frankly avowed +atheism), Euphemia, emancipated from old Nicholas, and Winifred +Dartie from her "man of the world." But, after all, everybody was +emancipated now, or said they were--perhaps not quite the same +thing! + +When Soames, therefore, took it on his way to Paddington station +on the morning after that encounter, it was hardly with the +expectation of seeing Timothy in the flesh. His heart made a faint +demonstration within him while he stood in full south sunlight on +the newly whitened doorstep of that little house where four +Forsytes had once lived, and now but one dwelt on like a winter +fly; the house into which Soames had come and out of which he had +gone times without number, divested of, or burdened with, fardels +of family gossip; the house of the "old people" of another +century, another age. + +The sight of Smither--still corseted up to the armpits because the +new fashion which came in as they were going out about 1903 had +never been considered "nice" by Aunts Juley and Hester--brought a +pale friendliness to Soames's lips; Smither, still faithfully +arranged to old pattern in every detail, an invaluable servant-- +none such left--smiling back at him, with the words: "Why! it's +Mr. Soames, after all this time! And how are YOU, sir? Mr. Timothy +will be so pleased to know you've been." + +"How is he?" + +"Oh! he keeps fairly bobbish for his age, sir; but of course he's +a wonderful man. As I said to Mrs. Dartie when she was here last: +It WOULD please Miss Forsyte and Mrs. Juley and Miss Hester to see +how he relishes a baked apple still. But he's quite deaf. And a +mercy, I always think. For what we should have done with him in +the air-raids, I don't know." + +"Ah!" said Soames. "What DID you do with him?" + +"We just left him in his bed, and had the bell run down into the +cellar, so that Cook and I could hear him if he rang. It would +never have done to let him know there was a war on. As I said to +Cook, 'If Mr. Timothy rings, they may do what they like--I'm going +up. My dear mistresses would have a fit if they could see him +ringing and nobody going to him.' But he slept through them all +beautiful. And the one in the daytime he was having his bath. It +WAS a mercy, because he might have noticed the people in the +street all looking up--he often looks out of the window." + +"Quite!" murmured Soames. Smither was getting garrulous! "I just +want to look round and see if there's anything to be done." + +"Yes, sir. I don't think there's anything except a smell of mice +in the dining-room that we don't know how to get rid of. It's +funny they should be there, and not a crumb, since Mr. Timothy +took to not coming down, just before the war. But they're nasty +little things; you never know where they'll take you next." + +"Does he leave his bed?" + +"Oh! yes, sir; he takes nice exercise between his bed and the +window in the morning, not to risk a change of air. And he's quite +comfortable in himself; has his Will out every day regular. It's a +great consolation to him--that." + +"Well, Smither, I want to see him, if I can; in case he has +anything to say to me." + +Smither coloured up above her corsets. + +"It WILL be an occasion!" she said. "Shall I take you round the +house, sir, while I send Cook to break it to him?" + +"No, you go to him," said Soames. "I can go round the house by +myself." + +One could not confess to sentiment before another, and Soames felt +that he was going to be sentimental nosing round those rooms so +saturated with the past. When Smither, creaking with excitement, +had left him, Soames entered the dining-room and sniffed. In his +opinion it wasn't mice, but incipient wood-rot, and he examined +the panelling. Whether it was worth a coat of paint, at Timothy's +age, he was not sure. The room had always been the most modern in +the house; and only a faint smile curled Soames's lips and +nostrils. Walls of a rich green surmounted the oak dado; a heavy +metal chandelier hung by a chain from a ceiling divided by +imitation beams. The pictures had been bought by Timothy, a +bargain, one day at Jobson's sixty years ago--three Snyder "still +lifes," two faintly coloured drawings of a boy and a girl, rather +charming, which bore the initials "J.R."--Timothy had always +believed they might turn out to be Joshua Reynolds, but Soames, +who admired them, had discovered that they were only John +Robinson; and a doubtful Morland of a white pony being shod. Deep- +red plush curtains, ten high-backed dark mahogany chairs with +deep-red plush seats, a Turkey carpet, and a mahogany dining- +table as large as the room was small, such was an apartment which +Soames could remember unchanged in soul or body since he was four +years old. He looked especially at the two drawings, and thought: +'I shall buy those at the sale.' + +From the dining-room he passed into Timothy's study. He did not +remember ever having been in that room. It was lined from floor to +ceiling with volumes, and he looked at them with curiosity. One +wall seemed devoted to educational books, which Timothy's firm had +published two generations back--sometimes as many as twenty copies +of one book. Soames read their titles and shuddered. The middle +wall had precisely the same books as used to be in the library at +his own father's in Park Lane, from which he deduced the fancy +that James and his youngest brother had gone out together one day +and bought a brace of small libraries. The third wall he +approached with more excitement. Here, surely, Timothy's own taste +would be found. It was. The books were dummies. The fourth wall +was all heavily curtained window. And turned towards it was a +large chair with a mahogany reading-stand attached, on which a +yellowish and folded copy of The Times, dated July 6, 1914, the +day Timothy first failed to come down, as if in preparation for +the war, seemed waiting for him still. In a corner stood a large +globe of that world never visited by Timothy, deeply convinced of +the unreality of everything but England, and permanently upset by +the sea, on which he had been very sick one Sunday afternoon in +1836, out of a pleasure boat off the pier at Brighton, with Juley +and Hester, Swithin and Hatty Chessman; all due to Swithin, who +was always taking things into his head, and who, thank goodness, +had been sick too. Soames knew all about it, having heard the tale +fifty times at least from one or other of them. He went up to the +globe, and gave it a spin; it emitted a faint creak and moved +about an inch, bringing into his purview a daddy-long-legs which +had died on it in latitude 44. + +'Mausoleum!' he thought. 'George was right!' And he went out and +up the stairs. On the half landing he stopped before the case of +stuffed humming-birds which had delighted his childhood. They +looked not a day older, suspended on wires above pampas-grass. If +the case were opened the birds would not begin to hum, but the +whole thing would crumble, he suspected. It wouldn't be worth +putting that into the sale! And suddenly he was caught by a memory +of Aunt Ann--dear old Aunt Ann--holding him by the hand in front +of that case and saying: "Look, Soamey! Aren't they bright and +pretty, dear little humming-birds!" Soames remembered his own +answer: "They don't hum, Auntie." He must have been six, in a +black velveteen suit with a light-blue collar--he remembered that +suit well! Aunt Ann with her ringlets, and her spidery kind hands, +and her grave old aquiline smile--a fine old lady, Aunt Ann! He +moved on up to the drawing-room door. There on each side of it +were the groups of miniatures. Those he would certainly buy in! +The miniatures of his four aunts, one of his uncle Swithin +adolescent, and one of his uncle Nicholas as a boy. They had all +been painted by a young lady friend of the family at a time, 1830, +about, when miniatures were considered very genteel, and lasting +too, painted as they were on ivory. Many a time had he heard the +tale of that young lady: "Very talented, my dear; she had quite a +weakness for Swithin, and very soon after she went into a +consumption and died: so like Keats--we often spoke of it." + +Well, there they were! Ann, Juley, Hester, Susan--quite a small +child; Swithin, with sky-blue eyes, pink cheeks, yellow curls, +white waistcoat--large as life; and Nicholas, like Cupid with an +eye on heaven. Now he came to think of it, Uncle Nick had always +been rather like that--a wonderful man to the last. Yes, she must +have had talent, and miniatures had a certain back-watered cachet +of their own, little subject to the currents of competition on +aesthetic Change. Soames opened the drawing-room door. The room +was dusted, the furniture uncovered, the curtains drawn back, +precisely as if his aunts still dwelt there patiently waiting. And +a thought came to him: When Timothy died--why not? Would it not be +almost a duty to preserve this house--like Carlyle's--and put up +a tablet, and show it? "Specimen of mid-Victorian abode-- +entrance, one shilling, with catalogue." After all, it was the +completest thing, and perhaps the deadest in the London of to-day. +Perfect in its special taste and culture, if, that is, he took +down and carried over to his own collection the four Barbizon +pictures he had given them. The still sky-blue walls, the green +curtains patterned with red flowers and ferns; the crewel-worked +fire-screen before the cast-iron grate; the mahogany cupboard with +glass windows, full of little knick-knacks; the beaded footstools; +Keats, Shelley, Southey, Cowper, Coleridge, Byron's "Corsair" (but +nothing else), and the Victorian poets in a bookshelf row; the +marqueterie cabinet lined with dim red plush, full of family +relics; Hester's first fan; the buckles of their mother's father's +shoes; three bottled scorpions; and one very yellow elephant's +tusk, sent home from India by Great-uncle Edgar Forsyte, who had +been in jute; a yellow bit of paper propped up, with spidery +writing on it, recording God knew what! And the pictures crowding +on the walls--all water-colours save those four Barbizons looking +like the foreigners they were, and doubtful customers at that-- +pictures bright and illustrative, "Telling the Bees," "Hey for the +Ferry!" and two in the style of Frith, all thimblerig and +crinolines, given them by Swithin. Oh! many, many pictures at +which Soames had gazed a thousand times in supercilious +fascination; a marvellous collection of bright, smooth gilt +frames. + +And the boudoir-grand piano, beautifully dusted, hermetically +sealed as ever; and Aunt Juley's album of pressed seaweed on it. +And the gilt-legged chairs, stronger than they looked. And on one +side of the fireplace the sofa of crimson silk, where Aunt Ann, +and after her Aunt Juley, had been wont to sit, facing the light +and bolt upright. And on the other side of the fire the one really +easy chair, back to the light, for Aunt Hester. Soames screwed up +his eyes; he seemed to see them sitting there. Ah! and the +atmosphere--even now, of too many stuffs and washed lace curtains, +lavender in bags, and dried bee's wings. 'No,' he thought, +'there's nothing like it left; it ought to be preserved.' And, by +George, they might laugh at it, but for a standard of gentle life +never departed from, for fastidiousness of skin and eye and nose +and feeling, it beat to-day hollow--to-day with its Tubes and +cars, its perpetual smoking, its cross-legged, bare-necked girls +visible up to the knees and down to the waist if you took the +trouble (agreeable to the satyr within each Forsyte but hardly his +idea of a lady), with their feet, too, screwed round the legs of +their chairs while they ate, and their "So longs," and their "Old +Beans," and their laughter--girls who gave him the shudders +whenever he thought of Fleur in contact with them; and the hard- +eyed, capable, older women who managed life and gave him the +shudders too. No! his old aunts, if they never opened their minds, +their eyes, or very much their windows, at least had manners, and +a standard, and reverence for past and future. + +With rather a choky feeling he closed the door and went tiptoeing +up-stairs. He looked in at a place on the way: H'm! in perfect +order of the eighties, with a sort of yellow oilskin paper on the +walls. At the top of the stairs he hesitated between four doors. +Which of them was Timothy's? And he listened. A sound as of a +child slowly dragging a hobby-horse about, came to his ears. That +must be Timothy! He tapped, and a door was opened by Smither very +red in the face. + +Mr. Timothy was taking his walk, and she had not been able to get +him to attend. If Mr. Soames would come into the back room, he +could see him through the door. + +Soames went into the back room and stood watching. + +The last of the old Forsytes was on his feet, moving with the most +impressive slowness, and an air of perfect concentration on his +own affairs, backward and forward between the foot of his bed and +the window, a distance of some twelve feet. The lower part of his +square face, no longer clean-shaven, was covered with snowy beard +clipped as short as it could be, and his chin looked as broad as +his brow where the hair was also quite white, while nose and +cheeks and brow were a good yellow. One hand held a stout stick, +and the other grasped the skirt of his Jaeger dressing-gown, from +under which could be seen his bed-socked ankles and feet thrust +into Jaeger slippers. The expression on his face was that of a +crossed child, intent on something that he has not got. Each time +he turned he stumped the stick, and then dragged it, as if to show +that he could do without it. + +"He still looks strong," said Soames under his breath. + +"Oh! yes, sir. You should see him take his bath--it's wonderful; +he does enjoy it so." + +Those quite loud words gave Soames an insight. Timothy had resumed +his babyhood. + +"Does he take any interest in things generally?" he said, also +aloud. + +"Oh! yes, sir; his food and his Will. It's quite a sight to see +him turn it over and over, not to read it, of course; and every +now and then he asks the price of Consols, and I write it on a +slate for him--very large. Of course, I always write the same, +what they were when he last took notice, in 1914. We got the +doctor to forbid him to read the paper when the war broke out. Oh! +he did take on about that at first. But he soon came round, +because he knew it tired him; and he's a wonder to conserve energy +as he used to call it when my dear mistresses were alive, bless +their hearts! How he did go on at them about that; they were +always so active, if you remember, Mr. Soames." + +"What would happen if I were to go in?" asked Soames. "Would he +remember me? I made his Will, you know, after Miss Hester died in +1907." + +"Oh! that, sir," replied Smither doubtfully, "I couldn't take on +me to say. I think he might; he really is a wonderful man for his +age." + +Soames moved into the doorway, and, waiting for Timothy to turn, +said in a loud voice: "Uncle Timothy!" + +Timothy trailed back half-way, and halted. + +"Eh?" he said. + +"Soames," cried Soames at the top of his voice, holding out his +hand, "Soames Forsyte!" + +"No!" said Timothy, and stumping his stick loudly on the floor, he +continued his walk. + +"It doesn't seem to work," said Soames. + +"No, sir," replied Smither, rather crestfallen; "you see, he +hasn't finished his walk. It always was one thing at a time with +him. I expect he'll ask me this afternoon if you came about the +gas, and a pretty job I shall have to make him understand." + +"Do you think he ought to have a man about him?" + +Smither held up her hands. "A man! Oh! no. Cook and me can manage +perfectly. A strange man about would send him crazy in no time. +And my mistresses wouldn't like the idea of a man in the house. +Besides, we're so proud of him." + +"I suppose the doctor comes?" + +"Every morning. He makes special terms for such a quantity, and +Mr. Timothy's so used, he doesn't take a bit of notice, except to +put out his tongue." + +"Well," said Soames, turning away, "it's rather sad and painful to +me." + +"Oh! sir," returned Smither anxiously, "you mustn't think that. +Now that he can't worry about things, he quite enjoys his life, +really he does. As I say to Cook, Mr. Timothy is more of a man +than he ever was. You see, when he's not walkin', or takin' his +bath, he's eatin', and when he's not eatin', he's sleeping and +there it is. There isn't an ache or a care about him anywhere." + +"Well," said Soames, "there's something in that. I'll go down. By +the way, let me see his Will." + +"I should have to take my time about that, sir; he keeps it under +his pillow, and he'd see me, while he's active." + +"I only want to know if it's the one I made," said Soames; "you +take a look at its date some time, and let me know." + +"Yes, sir; but I'm sure it's the same, because me and Cook +witnessed, you remember, and there's our names on it still, and +we've only done it once." + +"Quite!" said Soames. He did remember. Smither and Jane had been +proper witnesses, having been left nothing in the Will that they +might have no interest in Timothy's death. It had been--he fully +admitted--an almost improper precaution, but Timothy had wished +it, and, after all, Aunt Hester had provided for them amply. + +"Very well," he said; "good-bye, Smither. Look after him, and if +he should say anything at any time, put it down, and let me know." + +"Oh! yes, Mr. Soames; I'll be sure to do that. It's been such a +pleasant change to see you. Cook will be quite excited when I tell +her." + +Soames shook her hand and went down-stairs. He stood for fully two +minutes by the hat-stand whereon he had hung his hat so many +times. 'So it all passes,' he was thinking; 'passes and begins +again. Poor old chap!' And he listened, if perchance the sound of +Timothy trailing his hobby-horse might come down the well of the +stairs; or some ghost of an old face show over the banisters, and +an old voice say: "Why, it's dear Soames, and we were only saying +that we hadn't seen him for a week!" + +Nothing--nothing! Just the scent of camphor, and dust-motes in a +sunbeam through the fanlight over the door. The little old house! +A mausoleum! And, turning on his heel, he went out, and caught his +train. + + + + + +V + +THE NATIVE HEATH + + + "His foot's upon his native heath, + His name's--Val Dartie." + +With some such feeling did Val Dartie, in the fortieth year of his +age, set out that same Thursday morning very early from the old +manor-house he had taken on the north side of the Sussex Downs. +His destination was Newmarket, and he had not been there since the +autumn of 1899, when he stole over from Oxford for the +Cambridgeshire. He paused at the door to give his wife a kiss, and +put a flask of port into his pocket. + +"Don't overtire your leg, Val, and don't bet too much." + +With the pressure of her chest against his own, and her eyes +looking into his, Val felt both leg and pocket safe. He should be +moderate; Holly was always right--she had a natural aptitude. It +did not seem so remarkable to him, perhaps, as it might to others, +that--half Dartie as he was--he should have been perfectly +faithful to his young first cousin during the twenty years since +he married her romantically out in the Boer War; and faithful +without any feeling of sacrifice or boredom--she was so quick, so +slyly always a little in front of his mood. Being first cousins +they had decided, or rather Holly had, to have no children; and, +though a little sallower, she had kept her looks, her slimness, +and the colour of her dark hair. Val particularly admired the life +of her own she carried on, besides carrying on his, and riding +better every year. She kept up her music, she read an awful lot-- +novels, poetry, all sorts of stuff. Out on their farm in Cape +Colony she had looked after all the "nigger" babies and women in a +miraculous manner. She was, in fact,--clever; yet made no fuss +about it, and had no "side." Though not remarkable for humility, +Val had come to have the feeling that she was his superior, and he +did not grudge it--a great tribute. It might be noted that he +never looked at Holly without her knowing of it, but that she +looked at him sometimes unawares. + +He has kissed her in the porch because he should not be doing so +on the platform, though she was going to the station with him, to +drive the car back. Tanned and wrinkled by Colonial weather and +the wiles inseparable from horses, and handicapped by the leg +which, weakened in the Boer War, had probably saved his life in +the war just past, Val was still much as he had been in the days +of his courtship; his smile as wide and charming, his eyelashes, +if anything, thicker and darker, his eyes screwed up under them, +as bright a grey, his freckles rather deeper, his hair a little +grizzled at the sides. He gave the impression of one who has lived +actively WITH HORSES in a sunny climate. + +Twisting the car sharp round at the gate, he said: + +"When is young Jon coming?" + +"To-day." + +"Is there anything you want for him? I could bring it down on +Saturday." + +"No; but you might come by the same train as Fleur--one forty." + +Val gave the Ford full rein; he still drove like a man in a new +country on bad roads, who refuses to compromise, and expects +heaven at every hole. + +"That's a young woman who knows her way about," he said. "I say, +has it struck you?" + +"Yes," said Holly. + +"Uncle Soames and your dad--bit awkward, isn't it?" + +"She won't know, and he won't know, and nothing must be said, of +course. It's only for five days, Val." + +"Stable secret! Righto!" If Holly thought it safe, it was. +Glancing slyly round at him, she said: "Did you notice how +beautifully she asked herself?" + +"No!" + +"Well, she did. What do you think of her, Val?" + +"Pretty, and clever; but she might run out at any corner if she +got her monkey up, I should say." + +"I'm wondering," Holly murmured, "whether she is the modern young +woman. One feels at sea coming home into all this." + +"You? You get the hang of things so quick." + +Holly slid her hand into his coat-pocket. + +"You keep one in the know," said Val, encouraged. "What do you +think of that Belgian fellow, Profond?" + +"I think he's rather 'a good devil.'" + +Val grinned. + +"He seems to me a queer fish for a friend of our family. In fact, +our family is in pretty queer waters, with Uncle Soames marrying a +Frenchwoman, and your dad marrying Soames's first. Our +grandfathers would have had fits!" + +"So would anybody's, my dear." + +"This car," said Val suddenly, "wants rousing; she doesn't get her +hind legs under her up-hill. I shall have to give her her head on +the slope if I'm to catch that train." + +There was that about horses which had prevented him from ever +really sympathising with a car, and the running of the Ford under +his guidance, compared with its running under that of Holly, was +always noticeable. He caught the train. + +"Take care going home; she'll throw you down if she can. Good-bye, +darling." + +"Good-bye," called Holly, and kissed her hand. + +In the train, after quarter of an hour's indecision between +thoughts of Holly, his morning paper, the look of the bright day, +and his dim memory of Newmarket, Val plunged into the recesses of +a small square book, all names, pedigrees, tap-roots, and notes +about the make and shape of horses. The Forsyte in him was bent on +the acquisition of a certain strain of blood, and he was subduing +resolutely as yet the Dartie hankering for a flutter. On getting +back to England, after the profitable sale of his South African +farm and stud, and observing that the sun seldom shone, Val had +said to himself: "I've absolutely got to have an interest in life, +or this country will give me the blues. Hunting's not enough, I'll +breed and I'll train." With just that extra pinch of shrewdness +and decision imparted by long residence in a new country, Val had +seen the weak point of modern breeding. They were all hypnotised +by fashion and high price. He should buy for looks, and let names +go hang! And, here he was already, hypnotised by the prestige of a +certain strain of blood! Half consciously, he thought: 'There's +something in this damned climate which makes one go round in a +ring. All the same, I must have a strain of Mayfly blood.' + +In this mood he reached the Mecca of his hopes. It was one of +those quiet meetings favorable to such as wish to look into +horses, rather than into the mouths of bookmakers; and Val clung +to the paddock. His twenty years of Colonial life, divesting him +of the dandyism in which he had been bred, had left him the +essential neatness of the horseman, and given him a queer and +rather blighting eye over what he called "the silly haw-haw" of +some Englishmen, the 'flapping cockatoory' of some Englishwomen-- +Holly had none of that and Holly was his model. Observant, quick, +resourceful, Val went straight to the heart of a transaction, a +horse, a drink; and he was on his way to the heart of a Mayfly +filly, when a slow voice said at his elbow: + +"Mr. Val Dartie? How's Mrs. Val Dartie? She's well, I hope." And +he saw beside him the Belgian he had met at his sister Imogen's. + +"Prosper Profond--I met you at lunch," added the voice. "How are +you?" murmured Val. + +"I'm very well," replied Monsieur Profond, smiling with a certain +inimitable slowness. "A good devil" Holly had called him. Well! He +looked a little like a devil, with his dark, clipped, pointed +beard; a sleepy one though, and good-humoured, with fine eyes, +unexpectedly intelligent. + +"Here's a gentleman wants to know you--cousin of yours--Mr. George +Forsyde." + +Val saw a large form, and a face clean-shaven, bull-like, a little +lowering, with sardonic humour bubbling behind a full grey eye; he +remembered it dimly from old days when he used to dine with his +father at the Iseeum Club. + +"I was a racing pal of your father's," George was saying. "How's +the stud? Like to buy one of my screws?" + +Val grinned, to hide the sudden feeling that the bottom had fallen +out of breeding. They believed in nothing over here, not even in +horses. George Forsyte, Prosper Profond! The devil himself was not +more disillusioned than those two. + +"Didn't know you were a racing man," he said to Monsieur Profond. + +"I'm not. I don' care for it. I'm a yachtin' man. I don' care for +yachtin' either, but I like to see my friends. I've got some +lunch, Mr. Val Dartie, just a small lunch, if you'd like to 'ave +some; not much--just a small one--in my car." + +"Thanks," said Val; "very good of you. I'll come along in about +quarter of an hour." + +"Over there. Mr. Forsyde's comin'," and Monsieur Profond "poinded" +with a yellow-gloved finger; "small car, with a small lunch"; he +moved on, groomed, sleepy, and remote, George Forsyte following, +neat, huge, and with his jesting air. + +Val remained gazing at the Mayfly filly. George Forsyte, of +course, was an old chap, but this Profond might be about his own +age; Val felt extremely young, as if the Mayfly filly were a toy +at which those two had laughed. The animal had lost reality. + +"That 'small' mare"--he seemed to hear the voice of Monsieur +Profond--"what do you see in her--we must all die!" + +And George Forsyte, crony of his father, racing still! The Mayfly +strain--was it any better than any other? He might just as well +have a flutter with his money instead. + +"No, by gum!" he muttered suddenly, "if it's no good breeding +horses, it's no good doing anything. What did I come for? I'll buy +her." + +He stood back and watched the ebb of the paddock visitors towards +the stand. Natty old chips, shrewd portly fellows, Jews, trainers +looking as if they had never been guilty of seeing a horse in +their lives; tall, flapping, languid women, or brisk, loud-voiced +women; young men with an air as if trying to take it seriously-- +two or three of them with only one arm! + +'Life over here's a game!' thought Val. 'Muffin bell rings, horses +run, money changes hands; ring again, run again, money changes +back.' + +But, alarmed at his own philosophy, he went to the paddock gate to +watch the Mayfly filly canter down. She moved well; and he made +his way over to the "small" car. The "small" lunch was the sort a +man dreams of but seldom gets; and when it was concluded Monsieur +Profond walked back with him to the paddock. + +"Your wife's a nice woman," was his surprising remark. + +"Nicest woman I know," returned Val dryly. + +"Yes," said Monsieur Profond; "she has a nice face. I admire nice +women." + +Val looked at him suspiciously, but something kindly and direct in +the heavy diabolism of his companion disarmed him for the moment. + +"Any time you like to come on my yacht, I'll give her a small +cruise." + +"Thanks," said Val, in arms again, "she hates the sea." + +"So do I," said Monsieur Profond. + +"Then why do you yacht?" + +The Belgian's eyes smiled. "Oh! I don' know. I've done everything; +it's the last thing I'm doin'." + +"It must be d--d expensive. I should want more reason than that." + +Monsieur Prosper Profond raised his eyebrows, and puffed out a +heavy lower lip. + +"I'm an easy-goin' man," he said. + +"Were you in the war?" asked Val. + +"Ye-es. I've done that too. I was gassed; it was a small bit +unpleasant." He smiled with a deep and sleepy air of prosperity, +as if he had caught it from his name. Whether his saying "small" +when he ought to have said "little" was genuine mistake or +affectation, Val could not decide; the fellow was evidently +capable of anything. Among the ring of buyers round the Mayfly +filly who had won her race, Monsieur Profond said: "You goin' to +bid?" + +Val nodded. With this sleepy Satan at his elbow, he felt in need +of faith. Though placed above the ultimate blows of Providence by +the forethought of a grandfather who had tied him up a thousand a +year to which was added the thousand a year tied up for Holly by +HER grand-father, Val was not flush of capital that he could +touch, having spent most of what he had realised from his South +African farm on his establishment in Sussex. And very soon he was +thinking: 'Dash it! she's going beyond me!' His limit--six +hundred--exceeded, he dropped out of the bidding. The Mayfly filly +passed under the hammer at seven hundred and fifty guineas. He was +turning away vexed when the slow voice of Monsieur Profond said in +his ear: + +"Well, I've bought that small filly, but I don't want her; you +take her and give her to your wife." + +Val looked at the fellow with renewed suspicion, but the good +humour in his eyes was such that he really could not take offence. + +"I made a small lot of money in the war," began Monsieur Profond +in answer to that look. "I 'ad armament shares. I like to give it +away. I'm always makin' money. I want very small lot myself. I +like my friends to 'ave it." + +"I'll buy her of you at the price you gave," said Val with sudden +resolution. + +"No," said Monsieur Profond. "You take her. I don' want her." + +"Hang it! One doesn't--" + +"Why not?" smiled Monsieur Profond. "I'm a friend of your family." + +"Seven hundred and fifty guineas is not a box of cigars," said Val +impatiently. + +"All right; you keep her for me till I want her, and do what you +like with her." + +"So long as she's yours," said Val, "I don't mind that." "That's +all right," murmured Monsieur Profond, and moved away. + +Val watched; he might be "a good devil," but then again he might +not. He saw him rejoin George Forsyte, and thereafter saw him no +more. + +He spent those nights after racing at his mother's house in Green +Street. + +Winifred Dartie at sixty-two was marvellously preserved, +considering the three-and-thirty years during which she had put up +with Montague Dartie, till almost happily released by a French +staircase. It was to her a vehement satisfaction to have her +favourite son back from South Africa after all this time, to feel +him so little changed, and to have taken a fancy to his wife. +Winifred, who in the late seventies, before her marriage, had been +in the vanguard of freedom, pleasure, and fashion, confessed her +youth outclassed by the donzellas of the day. They seemed, for +instance, to regard marriage as an incident, and Winifred +sometimes regretted that she had not done the same; a second, +third, fourth incident might have secured her a partner of less +dazzling inebriety; though, after all, he had left her Val, +Imogen, Maud, Benedict (almost a colonel and unharmed by the war)-- +none of whom had been divorced as yet. The steadiness of her +children often amazed one who remembered their father; but, as she +was fond of believing, they were really all Forsytes, favouring +herself, with the exception perhaps of Imogen. Her brother's +"little girl" Fleur frankly puzzled Winifred. The child was as +restless as any of these modern young women--"She's a small flame +in a draught," Prosper Profond had said one day after dinner--but +she did not flop, or talk at the top of her voice. The steady +Forsyteism in Winifred's own character instinctively resented the +feeling in the air, the modern girl's habits and her motto: "All's +much of a muchness! Spend! To-morrow we shall be poor!" She found +it a saving grace in Fleur that having set her heart on a thing, +she had no change of heart until she got it--though what happened +after, Fleur was, of course, too young to have made evident. The +child was a "very pretty little thing," too. and quite a credit to +take about, with her mother's French taste and gift for wearing +clothes; everybody turned to look at Fleur--great consideration to +Winifred, a lover of the style and distinction which had so +cruelly deceived her in the case of Montague Dartie. + +In discussing her with Val, at breakfast on Saturday morning, +Winifred dwelt on the family skeleton. + +"That little affair of your father-in-law and your Aunt Irene, +Val--it's old as the hills, of course, Fleur need know nothing +about it--making a fuss. Your Uncle Soames is very particular +about that. So you'll be careful." + +"Yes! But it's dashed awkward--Holly's young half-brother is +coming to live with us while he learns farming. He's there +already." + +"Oh!" said Winifred. "That is a gaff! What is he like?" + +"Only saw him once--at Robin Hill, when we were home in 1909; he +was naked and painted blue and yellow in stripes--a jolly little +chap." + +Winifred thought that "rather nice," and added comfortably: "Well, +Holly's sensible; she'll know how to deal with it. I shan't tell +your uncle. It'll only bother him. It's a great comfort to have +you back, my dear boy, now that I'm getting on." + +"Getting on! Why! you're as young as ever. By the way, that chap +Profond, Mother, is he all right?" + +"Prosper Profond! Oh! the most amusing man I know." + +Val grunted, and recounted the story of the Mayfly filly. + +"That's SO like him," murmured Winifred. "He does all sorts of +things." + +"Well," said Val shrewdly, "our family haven't been too lucky with +that kind of cattle; they're too light-hearted for us." + +It was true, and Winifred's blue study lasted a full minute before +she answered: + +"Oh! well! He's a foreigner, Val; one must make allowances." + +"All right, I'll use his filly and make it up to him, somehow." + +And soon after he gave her his blessing, received a kiss, and left +her for his bookmaker's, the Iseeum Club, and Victoria station. + + + + + +VI + +JON + + +Mrs. Val Dartie, after twenty years of South Africa, had fallen +deeply in love, fortunately with something of her own, for the +object of her passion was the prospect in front of her windows, +the cool clear light on the green Downs. It was England again, at +last! England more beautiful than she had dreamed. Chance had, in +fact, guided the Val Darties to a spot where the South Downs had +real charm when the sun shone. Holly had enough of her father's +eye to apprehend the rare quality of their outlines and chalky +radiance; to go up there by the ravine-like lane and wander along +towards Chanctonbury or Amberley, was still a delight which she +hardly attempted to share with Val, whose admiration of Nature was +confused by a Forsyte's instinct for getting something out of it, +such as the condition of the turf for his horses' exercise. + +Driving the Ford home with a certain humouring smoothness, she +promised herself that the first use she would make of Jon would be +to take him up there, and show him "the view" under this May-day +sky. + +She was looking forward to her young half-brother with a +motherliness not exhausted by Val. A three-day visit to Robin +Hill, soon after their arrival home, had yielded no sight of him-- +he was still at school; so that her recollection, like Val's, was +of a little sunny-haired boy striped blue and yellow, down by the +pond. + +Those three days at Robin Hill had been exciting, sad, +embarrassing. Memories of her dead brother, memories of Val's +courtship; the aging of her father, not seen for twenty years, +something funereal in his ironic gentleness which did not escape +one who had much subtle instinct; above all, the presence of her +stepmother, whom she could still vaguely remember as the "lady in +grey" of days when she was little and grandfather alive and +Mademoiselle Beauce so cross because that intruder gave her music +lessons--all these confused and tantalised a spirit which had +longed to find Robin Hill untroubled. But Holly was adept at +keeping things to herself, and all had seemed to go quite well. + +Her father had kissed her when she left him, with lips which she +was sure had trembled. + +"Well, my dear," he said, "the war hasn't changed Robin Hill, has +it? If only you could have brought Jolly back with you! I say, can +you stand this spiritualistic racket? When the oak-tree dies, it +dies, I'm afraid." + +From the warmth of her embrace he probably divined that he had let +the cat out of his bag, for he rode off at once on irony. + +"Spiritualism--queer word, when the more they manifest the more +they prove that they've got hold of matter." + +"How?" said Holly. + +"Why! Look at their photographs of auric presences. You must have +something material for light and shade to fall on before you can +take a photograph. No, it'll end in our calling all matter spirit, +or all spirit matter--I don't know which." + +"But don't you believe in survival, Dad?" + +Jolyon had looked at her, and the sad whimsicality of his face +impressed her deeply. + +"Well, my dear, I should like to get something out of death. I've +been looking into it a bit. But for the life of me I can't find +anything that telepathy, subconsciousness, and emanation from the +storehouse of this world can't account for just as well. Wish I +could! Wishes father thoughts but they don't breed evidence." + +Holly had pressed her lips again to his forehead with a feeling +that it confirmed his theory that all matter was becoming spirit-- +his brow felt somehow so insubstantial. + +But the most poignant memory of that little visit had been +watching, unobserved, her stepmother reading to herself a letter +from Jon. It was--she decided--the prettiest sight she had ever +seen. Irene, lost as it were in the letter of her boy, stood at a +window where the light fell on her face and her fine grey hair; +her lips were moving, smiling, her dark eyes laughing, dancing, +and the hand which did not hold the letter was pressed against her +breast. Holly withdrew as from a vision of perfect love, convinced +that Jon must be nice. + +When she saw him coming out of the station with a kit-bag in +either hand, she was confirmed in her predisposition. He was a +little like Jolly, that long-lost idol of her childhood, but +eager-looking and less formal, with deeper eyes and brighter- +coloured hair, for he wore no hat; altogether a very interesting +"little" brother! + +His tentative politeness charmed one who was accustomed to +assurance in the youthful manner; he was disturbed because she was +to drive him home, instead of his driving her. Shouldn't he have a +shot? They hadn't a car at Robin Hill since the war, of course, +and he had only driven once, and landed up a bank, so she oughtn't +to mind his trying. His laugh, soft and infectious, was very +attractive, though that word, she had heard, was now quite old- +fashioned. When they reached the house he pulled out a crumpled +letter which she read while he was washing--a quite short letter, +which must have cost her father many a pang to write. + +"MY DEAR, + +"You and Val will not forget, I trust, that Jon knows nothing of +family history. His mother and I think he is too young at present. +The boy is very dear, and the apple of her eye. Verbum +sapientibus. + +Your loving father, J. F." + +That was all; but it renewed in Holly an uneasy regret that Fleur +was coming. + +After tea she fulfilled that promise to herself and took Jon up +the hill. They had a long talk, sitting above an old chalk-pit +grown over with brambles and goosepenny. Milkwort and liverwort +starred the green slope, the larks sang, and thrushes in the +brake, and now and then a gull flighting inland would wheel very +white against the paling sky, where the vague moon was coming up. +Delicious fragrance came to them, as if little invisible creatures +were running and treading scent out of the blades of grass. + +Jon, who had fallen silent, said rather suddenly: "I say, this is +wonderful! There's no fat on it at all. Gull's flight and sheep- +bells--" + +"Gull's flight and sheep-bells! You're a poet, my dear!" + +Jon sighed. + +"Oh, Golly! No go!" + +"Try! I used to at your age." + +"Did you? Mother says 'try' too; but I'm so rotten. Have you any +of yours for me to see?" + +"My dear," Holly murmured, "I've been married nineteen years. I +only wrote verses when I wanted to be." + +"Oh!" said Jon, and turned over on to his face: the one cheek she +could see was a charming colour. Was Jon "touched in the wind," +then, as Val would have called it? Already? But, if so, all the +better, he would take no notice of young Fleur. Besides, on Monday +he would begin his farming. And she smiled. Was it Burns who +followed the plough, or only Piers Plowman? Nearly every young man +and most young women seemed to be poets nowadays, from the number +of their books she had read out in South Africa, importing them +from Hatchus and Bumphards; and quite good--oh! quite; much better +than she had been herself! But then poetry had only really come in +since her day--with motor-cars. Another long talk after dinner +over a wood fire in the low hall, and there seemed little left to +know about Jon except anything of real importance. Holly parted +from him at his bedroom door, having seen twice over that he had +everything, with the conviction that she would love him, and Val +would like him. He was eager, but did not gush; he was a splendid +listener, sympathetic, reticent about himself. He evidently loved +their father, and adored his mother. He liked riding, rowing, and +fencing, better than games. He saved moths from candles, and +couldn't bear spiders, but put them out of doors in screws of +paper sooner than kill them. In a word, he was amiable. She went +to sleep, thinking that he would suffer horribly if anybody hurt +him; but who would hurt him? + +Jon, on the other hand, sat awake at his window with a bit of +paper and a pencil, writing his first "real poem" by the light of +a candle because there was not enough moon to see by, only enough +to make the night seem fluttery and as if engraved on silver. Just +the night for Fleur to walk, and turn her eyes, and lead on--over +the hills and far away. And Jon, deeply furrowed in his ingenuous +brow, made marks on the paper and rubbed them out and wrote them +in again, and did all that was necessary for the completion of a +work of art; and he had a feeling such as the winds of Spring must +have, trying their first songs among the coming blossom. Jon was +one of those boys (not many) in whom a home-trained love of beauty +had survived school life. He had had to keep it to himself, of +course, so that not even the drawing-master knew of it; but it +was there, fastidious and clear within him. And his poem seemed to +him as lame and stilted as the night was winged. But he kept it +all the same. It was a "beast," but better than nothing as an +expression of the inexpressible. And he thought with a sort of +discomfiture: 'I shan't be able to show it to Mother.' He slept +terribly well, when he did sleep, overwhelmed by novelty. + + + + + +VII + +FLEUR + + +To avoid the awkwardness of questions which could not be answered, +all that had been told Jon was: "There's a girl coming down with +Val for the week-end." + +For the same reason, all that had been told Fleur was: "We've got +a youngster staying with us." + +The two yearlings, as Val called them in his thoughts, met +therefore in a manner which for unpreparedness left nothing to be +desired. They were thus introduced by Holly: + +"This is Jon, my little brother; Fleur's a cousin of ours, Jon." + +Jon, who was coming in through a French window out of strong +sunlight, was so confounded by the providential nature of this +miracle, that he had time to hear Fleur say calmly: "Oh, how do +you do?" as if he had never seen her, and to understand dimly from +the quickest imaginable little movement of her head that he never +HAD seen her. He bowed therefore over her hand in an intoxicated +manner, and became more silent than the grave. He knew better than +to speak. Once in his early life, surprised reading by a night- +light, he had said fatuously "I was just turning over the leaves, +Mum," and his mother had replied: "Jon, never tell stories, +because of your face--nobody will ever believe them." + +The saying had permanently undermined the confidence necessary to +the success of spoken untruth. He listened therefore to Fleur's +swift and rapt allusions to the jolliness of everything, plied her +with scones and jam, and got away as soon as might be. They say +that in delirium tremens you see a fixed object, preferably dark, +which suddenly changes shape and position. Jon saw the fixed +object; it had dark eyes and passably dark hair, and changed its +position, but never its shape. The knowledge that between him and +that object there was already a secret understanding (however +impossible to understand) thrilled him so that he waited +feverishly, and began to copy out his poem--which of course he +would never dare to show her--till the sound of horses' hoofs +roused him, and, leaning from his window, he saw her riding forth +with Val. It was clear that she wasted no time; but the sight +filled him with grief. He wasted his. If he had not bolted, in his +fearful ecstasy, he might have been asked to go too. From his +window he watched them disappear, appear again in the chine of the +road, vanish, and emerge once more for a minute clear on the +outline of the Down. 'Silly brute!' he thought; 'I always miss my +chances.' + +Why couldn't he be self-confident and ready? And, leaning his chin +on his hands, he imagined the ride he might have had with her. A +week-end was but a week-end, and he had missed three hours of it. +Did he know any one except himself who would have been such a +flat? He did not. + +He dressed for dinner early, and was first down. He would miss no +more. But he missed Fleur, who came down last. He sat opposite her +at dinner, and it was terrible--impossible to say anything for +fear of saying the wrong thing, impossible to keep his eyes fixed +on her in the only natural way; in sum, impossible to treat +normally one with whom in fancy he had already been over the hills +and far away; conscious, too, all the time, that he must seem to +her, to all of them, a dumb gawk. Yes, it was terrible! And she +was talking so well--swooping with swift wing this way and that. +Wonderful how she had learned an art which he found so +disgustingly difficult. She must think him hopeless indeed! + +His sister's eyes fixed on him with a certain astonishment, +obliged him at last to look at Fleur; but instantly her eyes, very +wide and eager, seeming to say: "Oh! for goodness' sake!" obliged +him to look at Val; where a grin obliged him to look at his +cutlet--that, at least, had no eyes, and no grin, and he ate it +hastily. + +"Jon is going to be a farmer," he heard Holly say; "a farmer and a +poet." + +He glanced up reproachfully, caught the comic lift of her eyebrow +just like their father's, laughed, and felt better. + +Val recounted the incident of Monsieur Prosper Profond; nothing +could have been more favourable, for, in relating it, he regarded +Holly, who in turn regarded him, while Fleur seemed to be +regarding with a slight frown some thought of her own, and Jon was +really free to look at her at last. She had on a white frock, very +simple and well made; her arms were bare, and her hair had a white +rose in it. In just that swift moment of free vision, after such +intense discomfort, Jon saw her sublimated, as one sees in the +dark a slender white fruit-tree; caught her like a verse of poetry +flashed before the eyes of the mind, or a tune which floats out in +the distance and dies. + +He wondered giddily how old she was--she seemed so much more self- +possessed and experienced than himself. Why mustn't he say they +had met? He remembered suddenly his mother's face; puzzled, hurt- +looking, when she answered: "Yes, they're relations, but we don't +know them." Impossible that his mother, who loved beauty, should +not admire Fleur if she did know her! + +Alone with Val after dinner, he sipped port deferentially and +answered the advances of this new-found brother-in-law. As to +riding (always the first consideration with Val) he could have the +young chestnut, saddle and unsaddle it himself, and generally look +after it when he brought it in. Jon said he was accustomed to all +that at home, and saw that he had gone up one in his host's +estimation. + +"Fleur," said Val, "can't ride much yet, but she's keen. Of +course, her father doesn't know a horse from a cartwheel. Does +your dad ride?" + +"He used to; but now he's--you know, he's--" He stopped, so hating +the word old. His father was old, and yet not old; no--never! + +"Quite!" muttered Val. "I used to know your brother up at Oxford, +ages ago, the one who died in the Boer War. We had a fight in New +College Gardens. That was a queer business," he added, musing; "a +good deal came out of it." + +Jon's eyes opened wide; all was pushing him towards historical +research, when his sister's voice said gently from the doorway: + +"Come along, you two," and he rose, his heart pushing him towards +something far more modern. + +Fleur having declared that it was "simply too wonderful to stay +indoors," they all went out. Moonlight was frosting the dew, and +an old sun-dial threw a long shadow. Two box hedges at right +angles, dark and square, barred off the orchard. Fleur turned +through that angled opening. + +"Come on!" she called. Jon glanced at the others, and followed. +She was running among the trees like a ghost. All was lovely and +foamlike above her, and there was a scent of old trunks, and of +nettles. She vanished. He thought he had lost her, then almost ran +into her standing quite still. + +"Isn't it jolly?" she cried, and Jon answered: + +"Rather!" + +She reached up, twisted off a blossom, and, twirling it in her +fingers, said: + +"I suppose I can call you Jon?" + +"I should think so just." + +"All right! But you know there's a feud between our families?" + +Jon stammered: "Feud? Why?" + +"It's ever so romantic and silly? That's why I pretended we hadn't +met. Shall we get up early to-morrow morning and go for a walk +before breakfast and have it out? I hate being slow about things, +don't you?" + +Jon murmured a rapturous assent. + +"Six o'clock, then. I think your mother's beautiful." + +Jon said fervently: "Yes, she is." + +"I love all kinds of beauty," went on Fleur, "when it's exciting. +I don't like Greek things a bit." + +"What! Not Euripides?" + +"Euripides? Oh! no, I can't bear Greek plays; they're so long. I +think beauty's always swift. I like to look at ONE picture, for +instance, and then run off. I can't bear a lot of things together. +Look!" She held up her blossom in the moonlight. "That's better +than all the orchard, I think." + +And, suddenly, with her other hand she caught Jon's. "Of all +things in the world, don't you think caution's the most awful? +Smell the moonlight!" + +She thrust the blossom against his face; Jon agreed giddily that +of all things in the world caution was the worst, and bending +over, kissed the hand which held his. + +"That's nice and old-fashioned," said Fleur calmly. "You're +frightfully silent, Jon. Still I like silence when it's swift." +She let go his hand. "Did you think I dropped my handkerchief on +purpose?" + +"No!" cried Jon, intensely shocked. + +"Well, I did, of course. Let's get back, or they'll think we're +doing this on purpose too." And again she ran like a ghost among +the trees. Jon followed, with love in his heart, Spring in his +heart, and over all the moonlit white unearthly blossom. They came +out where they had gone in, Fleur walking demurely. + +"It's quite wonderful in there," she said dreamily to Holly. + +Jon preserved silence, hoping against hope that she might be +thinking it swift. + +She bade him a casual and demure good-night, which made him think +he had been dreaming.... + +In her bedroom Fleur had flung off her gown, and, wrapped in a +shapeless garment, with the white flower still in her hair, she +looked like a mousme, sitting cross-legged on her bed, writing by +candlelight. + +"DEAREST CHERRY: "I believe I'm in love. I've got it in the neck, +only the feeling is really lower down. He's a second cousin--such +a child, about six months older and ten years younger than I am. +Boys always fall in love with their seniors, and girls with their +juniors or with old men of forty. Don't laugh, but his eyes are +the truest things I ever saw; and he's quite divinely silent! We +had a most romantic first meeting in London under the Vospovitch +'Juno.' And now he's sleeping in the next room and the moonlight's +on the blossom; and to-morrow morning, before anybody's awake, +we're going to walk off into Down fairyland. There's a feud +between our families, which makes it really exciting. Yes! and I +may have to use subterfuge and come on you for invitations--if so, +you'll know why! My father doesn't want us to know each other, but +I can't help that. Life's too short. He's got the most beautiful +mother, with lovely silvery hair and a young face with dark eyes. +I'm staying with his sister--who married my cousin; it's all +mixed up, but I mean to pump her to-morrow. We've often talked +about love being a spoil-sport; well, that's all tosh, it's the +beginning of sport, and the sooner you feel it, my dear, the +better for you. + +"Jon (not simplified spelling, but short for Jolyon, which is a +name in my family, they say) is the sort that lights up and goes +out; about five feet ten, still growing, and I believe he's going +to be a poet. If you laugh at me I've done with you for ever. I +perceive all sorts of difficulties, but you know when I really +want a thing I get it. One of the chief effects of love is that +you see the air sort of inhabited, like seeing a face in the moon; +and you feel--you feel dancey and soft at the same time, with a +funny sensation--like a continual first sniff of orange blossom-- +just above your stays. This is my first, and I feel as if it were +going to be my last, which is absurd, of course, by all the laws +of Nature and morality. If you mock me I will smite you, and if +you tell anybody I will never forgive you. So much so, that I +almost don't think I'll send this letter. Anyway, I'll sleep over +it. So good-night, my Cherry--oh! + +Your FLEUR." + + + + + +VIII + +IDYLL ON GRASS + + +When those two young Forsytes emerged from the chine lane, and +set their faces East towards the sun, there was not a cloud in +heaven, and the Downs were dewy. They had come at a good bat up +the slope and were a little out of breath; if they had anything to +say they did not say it, but marched in the early awkwardness of +unbreakfasted morning under the songs of the larks. The stealing +out had been fun, but with the freedom of the tops the sense of +conspiracy ceased, and gave place to dumbness. + +"We've made one blooming error," said Fleur, when they had gone +half a mile. "I'm hungry." + +Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their +tongues were loosened. They discussed the nature of their homes +and previous existences, which had a kind of fascinating unreality +up on that lonely height. There remained but one thing solid in +Jon's past--his mother; but one thing solid in Fleur's--her +father; and of these figures, as though seen in the distance with +disapproving faces, they spoke little. + +The Down dipped and rose again towards Chanctonbury Ring; a +sparkle of far sea came into view, a sparrowhawk hovered in the +sun's eye so that the blood-nourished brown of his wings gleamed +nearly red. Jon had a passion for birds, and an aptitude for +sitting very still to watch them; keen-sighted, and with a memory +for what interested him, on birds he was almost worth listening +to. But in Chanctonbury Ring there were none--its great beech +temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at this early hour; +they came out willingly again into the sun on the far side. It was +Fleur's turn now. She spoke of dogs, and the way people treated +them. It was wicked to keep them on chains! She would like to flog +people who did that. Jon was astonished to find her so +humanitarian. She knew a dog, it seemed, which some farmer near +her home kept chained up at the end of his chicken run, in all +weathers till it had almost lost its voice from barking! + +"And the misery is," she said vehemently, "that if the poor thing +didn't bark at every one who passes it wouldn't be kept there. I +do think men are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice, on the sly; +it's nearly bitten me both times, and then it goes simply mad with +joy; but it always runs back home at last, and they chain it up +again. If I had my way, I'd chain that man up." + +Jon saw her teeth and her eyes gleam. "I'd brand him on his +forehead with the word 'Brute'; that would teach him!" + +Jon agreed that it would be a good remedy. "It's their sense of +property," he said, "which makes people chain things. The last +generation thought of nothing but property; and that's why there +was the war." + +"Oh!" said Fleur, "I never thought of that. Your people and mine +quarrelled about property. And anyway we've all got it--at least, +I suppose your people have." + +"Oh! yes, luckily; I don't suppose I shall be any good at making +money." + +"If you were, I don't believe I should like you." + +Jon slipped his hand tremulously under her arm. + +Fleur looked straight before her, and chanted: + + "Jon, Jon, the farmer's son, + Stole a pig, and away he run!" + +Jon's arm crept round her waist. + +"This is rather sudden," said Fleur calmly; "do you often do it?" + +Jon dropped his arm. But when she laughed, his arm stole back +again; and Fleur began to sing: + + "O who will o'er the downs so free, + O who will with me ride? + O who will up and follow me--" + +"Sing, Jon!" + +Jon sang. The larks joined in, sheep-bells, and an early morning +church far away over in Steyning. They went on from tune to tune, +till Fleur said: + +"My God! I am hungry now!" + +"Oh! I AM sorry!" + +She looked round into his face. + +"Jon, you're rather a darling." + +And she pressed his hand against her waist. Jon almost reeled with +happiness. A yellow-and-white dog coursing a hare startled them +apart. They watched the two vanish down the slope, till Fleur said +with a sigh: "He'll never catch it, thank goodness! What's the +time? Mine's stopped. I never wound it." + +Jon looked at his watch. "By Jove!" he said, "mine's stopped, +too." + +They walked on again, but only hand in hand. + +"If the grass is dry," said Fleur, "let's sit down for half a +minute." + +Jon took off his coat, and they shared it. + +"Smell! Actually wild thyme!" + +With his arm round her waist again, they sat some minutes in +silence. + +"We are goats!" cried Fleur, jumping up; "we shall be most +fearfully late, and look so silly, and put them on their guard. +Look here, Jon! We only came out to get an appetite for breakfast, +and lost our way. See?" + +"Yes," said Jon. + +"It's serious; there'll be a stopper put on us. Are you a good +liar?" + +"I believe not very; but I can try." Fleur frowned. + +"You know," she said, "I realise that they don't mean us to be +friends." + +"Why not?" + +"I told you why." + +"But that's silly." + +"Yes; but you don't know my father!" + +"I suppose he's fearfully fond of you." + +"You see, I'm an only child. And so are you--of your mother. Isn't +it a bore? There's so much expected of one. By the time they've +done expecting, one's as good as dead." + +"Yes," muttered Jon, "life's beastly short. One wants to live for +ever, and know everything." + +"And love everybody?" + +"No," cried Jon; "I only want to love once--you." + +"Indeed! You're coming on! Oh! Look! There's the chalk-pit; we +can't be very far now. Let's run." + +Jon followed, wondering fearfully if he had offended her. + +The chalk-pit was full of sunshine and the murmuration of bees. +Fleur flung back her hair. + +"Well," she said, "in case of accidents, you may give me one kiss, +Jon," and she pushed her cheek forward. With ecstasy he kissed +that hot soft cheek. + +"Now, remember! We lost our way; and leave it to me as much as you +can. I'm going to be rather beastly to you; it's safer; try and be +beastly to me!" + +Jon shook his head. "That's impossible." + +"Just to please me; till five o'clock, at all events." + +"Anybody will be able to see through it," said Jon gloomily. + +"Well, do your best. Look! There they are! Wave your hat! Oh! you +haven't got one. Well, I'll cooee! Get a little away from me, and +look sulky." + +Five minutes later, entering the house and, doing his utmost to +look sulky, Jon heard her clear voice in the dining-room: + +"Oh! I'm simply RAVENOUS! He's going to be a farmer--and he loses +his way! The boy's an idiot!" + + + + + +IX + +GOYA + + +Lunch was over and Soames mounted to the picture-gallery in his +house near Mapledurham. He had what Annette called "a grief." +Fleur was not yet home. She had been expected on Wednesday; had +wired that it would be Friday; and again on Friday that it would +be Sunday afternoon; and here were her aunt, and her cousins the +Cardigans, and this fellow Profond, and everything flat as a +pancake for the want of her. He stood before his Gauguin--sorest +point of his collection. He had bought the ugly great thing with +two early Matisses before the war, because there was such a fuss +about those Post-Impressionist chaps. He was wondering whether +Profond would take them off his hands--the fellow seemed not to +know what to do with his money--when he heard his sister's voice +say: "I think that's a horrid thing, Soames." and saw that +Winifred had followed him up. + +"Oh! you DO?" he said dryly; "I gave five hundred for it." + +"Fancy! Women aren't made like that even if they are black." + +Soames uttered a glum laugh. "You didn't come up to tell me that." + +"No. Do you know that Jolyon's boy is staying with Val and his +wife?" + +Soames spun round. + +"What?" + +"Yes," drawled Winifred; "he's gone to live with them there while +he learns farming." + +Soames had turned away, but her voice pursued him as he walked up +and down. "I warned Val that neither of them was to be spoken to +about old matters." + +"Why didn't you tell me before?" + +Winifred shrugged her substantial shoulders. + +"Fleur does what she likes. You've always spoiled her. Besides, my +dear boy, what's the harm?" + +"The harm!" muttered Soames. "Why, she--" he checked himself. The +Juno, the handkerchief, Fleur's eyes, her questions, and now this +delay in her return--the symptoms seemed to him so sinister that, +faithful to his nature, he could not part with them. + +"I think you take too much care," said Winifred; "if I were you, I +should tell her of that old matter. It's no good thinking that +girls in these days are as they used to be. Where they pick up +their knowledge I can't tell, but they seem to know everything." + +Over Soames's face, closely composed, passed a sort of spasm, and +Winifred added hastily: + +"If you don't like to speak of it, I could for you." Soames shook +his head. Unless there was absolute necessity the thought that his +adored daughter should learn of that old scandal hurt his pride +too much. + +"No," he said, "not yet. Never if I can help it." + +"Nonsense, my dear. Think what people are!" + +"Twenty years is a long time," muttered Soames, "outside our +family, who's likely to remember?" + +Winifred was silenced. She inclined more and more to that peace +and quietness of which Montague Dartie had deprived her in her +youth. And, since pictures always depressed her, she soon went +down again. + +Soames passed into the corner where, side by side, hung his real +Goya, and the copy of the fresco "La Vendimia." His acquisition of +the real Goya rather beautifully illustrated the cobweb of vested +interests and passions, which mesh the bright-winged fly of human +life. The real Goya's noble owner's ancestor had come into +possession of it during some Spanish war--it was in a word loot. +The noble owner had remained in ignorance of its value until in +the nineties an enterprising critic discovered that a Spanish +painter named Goya was a genius. It was only a fair Goya, but +almost unique in England, and the noble owner became a marked man. +Having many possessions and that aristocratic culture which, +independent of mere sensuous enjoyment, is founded on the sounder +principle that one must know everything and be fearfully +interested in life, he had fully intended to keep an article which +contributed to his reputation while he was alive, and to leave it +to the nation after he was dead. Fortunately for Soames, the House +of Lords was violently attacked in 1909, and the noble owner +became alarmed and angry. "If," he said to himself, "they think +they can have it both ways they are very much mistaken. So long as +they leave me in quiet enjoyment the nation can have some of my +pictures at my death. But if the nation is going to bait me, and +rob me like this, I'm damned if I won't sell the--lot. They can't +have my private property and my public spirit--both." He brooded +in this fashion for several months till one morning, after reading +the speech of a certain statesman, he telegraphed to his agent to +come down and bring Bodkin. On going over the collection Bodkin, +than whose opinion on market values none was more sought, +pronounced that with a free hand to sell to America, Germany, and +other places where there was an interest in art, a lot more money +could be made than by selling in England. The noble owner's public +spirit--he said--was well known but the pictures were unique. The +noble owner put this opinion in his pipe and smoked it for a year. +At the end of that time he read another speech by the same +statesman, and telegraphed to his agents: "Give Bodkin a free +hand." It was at this juncture that Bodkin conceived the idea +which salved the Goya and two other unique pictures for the native +country of the noble owner. With one hand Bodkin proffered the +pictures to the foreign market, with the other he formed a list of +private British collectors. Having obtained what he considered the +highest possible bids from across the seas, he submitted pictures +and bids to the private British collectors, and invited them, of +their public spirit, to outbid. In three instances (including the +Goya) out of twenty-one he was successful. And why? One of the +private collectors made buttons--he had made so many that he +desired that his wife should be called Lady "Buttons." He +therefore bought an unique picture at great cost, and gave it to +the nation. It was "part," his friends said, "of his general +game." The second of the private collectors was an Americo-phobe, +and bought a unique picture to "spite the damned Yanks." The third +of the private collectors was Soames, who--more sober than either +of the others--bought after a visit to Madrid, because he was +certain that Goya was still on the up grade. Goya was not booming +at the moment, but he would come again; and, looking at that +portrait, Hogarthian, Manetesque in its directness, but with its +own queer sharp beauty of paint, he was perfectly satisfied still +that he had made no error, heavy though the price had been-- +heaviest he had ever paid. And next to it was hanging the copy of +"La Vendimia." There she was--the little wretch--looking back at +him in her dreamy mood, the mood he loved best because he felt so +much safer when she looked like that. + +He was still gazing when the scent of a cigar impinged on his +nostrils, and a voice said: "Well, Mr. Forsyde, what you goin' to +do with this small lot?" + +That Belgian chap, whose mother--as if Flemish blood were not +enough--had been Armenian! Subduing a natural irritation, he said: +"Are you a judge of pictures?" + +"Well, I've got a few myself." + +"Any Post-Impressionists?" + +"Ye-es, I rather like them." + +"What do you think of this?" said Soames, pointing to the Gauguin. + +Monsieur Profond protruded his lower lip and short pointed beard. +"Rather fine, I think," he said; "do you want to sell it?" + +Soames checked his instinctive "Not particularly"--he would not +chaffer with this alien. + +"Yes," he said. + +"What do you want for it?" + +"What I gave." + +"All right," said Monsieur Profond. "I'll be glad to take that +small picture. Post-Impressionists--they're awful dead, but +they're amusin'. I don' care for pictures much, but I've got some, +just a small lot." + +"What DO you care for?" + +Monsieur Profond shrugged his shoulders. "Life's awful like a lot +of monkeys scramblin' for empty nuts." + +"You're young," said Soames. If the fellow must make a +generalisation, he needn't suggest that the forms of property +lacked solidity! + +"I don' worry," replied Monsieur Profond smiling; "we're born, and +we die. Half the world's starvin'. I feed a small lot of babies +out in my mother's country; but what's the use? Might as well +throw my money in the river." + +Soames looked at him, and turned back towards his Goya. He didn't +know what the fellow wanted. + +"What shall I make my cheque for?" pursued Monsieur Profond. + +"Five hundred," said Soames shortly; "but I don't want you to take +it if you don't care for it more than that." + +"That's all right," said Monsieur Profond; "I'll be 'appy to 'ave +that picture." + +He wrote a cheque with a fountain-pen heavily chased with gold. +Soames watched the process uneasily. How on earth had the fellow +known that he wanted to sell that picture? Monsieur Profond held +out the cheque. + +"The English are awful funny about pictures," he said. "So are the +French, so are my people. They're all awful funny." + +"I don't understand you," said Soames stiffly. + +"It's like hats," said Monsieur Profond enigmatically, "small or +large, turnin' up or down--just the fashion. Awful funny." And, +smiling, he drifted out of the gallery again, blue and solid like +the smoke of his excellent cigar. + +Soames had taken the cheque, feeling as if the intrinsic value of +ownership had been called in question. 'He's a cosmopolitan,' he +thought, watching Profond emerge from under the verandah with +Annette, and saunter down the lawn towards the river. What his +wife saw in the fellow he didn't know, unless it was that he could +speak her language; and there passed in Soames what Monsieur +Profond would have called a "small doubt" whether Annette was not +too handsome to be walking with any one so "cosmopolitan." Even at +that distance he could see the blue fumes from Profond's cigar +wreathe out in the quiet sunlight; and his grey buckskin shoes, +and his grey hat--the fellow was a dandy! And he could see the +quick turn of his wife's head, so very straight on her desirable +neck and shoulders. That turn of her neck always seemed to him a +little too showy, and in the "Queen of all I survey" manner--not +quite distinguished. He watched them walk along the path at the +bottom of the garden. A young man in flannels joined them down +there--a Sunday caller no doubt, from up the river. Soames went +back to his Goya. He was still staring at that replica of Fleur, +and worrying over Winifred's news, when his wife's voice said: + +"Mr. Michael Mont, Soames. You invited him to see your pictures." + +There was the cheerful young man of the Gallery off Cork Street! + +"Turned up, you see, sir; I live only four miles from Pangbourne. +Jolly day, isn't it?" + +Confronted with the results of his expansiveness, Soames +scrutinised his visitor. The young man's mouth was excessively +large and curly--he seemed always grinning. Why didn't he grow the +rest of those idiotic little moustaches, which made him look like +a music-hall buffoon? What on earth were young men about, +deliberately lowering their class with these tooth-brushes, or +little slug whiskers? Ugh! Affected young idiots! In other +respects he was presentable, and his flannels very clean. + +"Happy to see you!" he said. + +The young man, who had been turning his head from side to side, +became transfixed. "I say!" he said, "'some' picture!" + +Soames saw, with mixed sensations, that he had addressed the +remark to the Goya copy. + +"Yes," he said dryly, "that's not a Goya. It's a copy. I had it +painted because it reminded me of my daughter." + +"By Jove! I thought I knew the face, sir. Is she here?" + +The frankness of his interest almost disarmed Soames. + +"She'll be in after tea," he said. "Shall we go round the +gallery?" + +And Soames began that round which never tired him. He had not +anticipated much intelligence from one who had mistaken a copy for +an original, but as they passed from section to section, period to +period, he was startled by the young man's frank and relevant +remarks. Natively shrewd himself, and even sensuous beneath his +mask, Soames had not spent thirty-eight years over his one hobby +without knowing something more about pictures than their market +values. He was, as it were, the missing link between the artist +and the commercial public. Art for art's sake and all that, of +course, was cant. But aesthetics and good taste were necessary. +The appreciation of enough persons of good taste was what gave a +work of art its permanent market value, or in other words made it +"a work of art." There was no real cleavage. And he was +sufficiently accustomed to sheep-like and unseeing visitors, to be +intrigued by one who did not hesitate to say of Mauve: "Good old +haystacks!" or of James Maris: "Didn't he just paint and paper +'em! Mathew was the real swell, sir; you could dig into his +surfaces!" It was after the young man had whistled before a +Whistler, with the words: "D'you think he ever really saw a naked +woman, sir?" that Soames remarked: + +"What ARE you, Mr. Mont, if I may ask?" + +"I, sir? I WAS going to be a painter, but the War knocked that. +Then in the trenches, you know, I used to dream of the Stock +Exchange, snug and warm and just noisy enough. But the Peace +knocked that; shares seem off, don't they? I've only been demobbed +about a year. What do you recommend, sir?" + +"Have you got money?" + +"Well," answered the young man; "I've got a father, I kept him +alive during the War, so he's bound to keep me alive now. Though, +of course, there's the question whether he ought to be allowed to +hang on to his property. What do you think about that, sir?" + +Soames, pale and defensive, smiled. + +"The old man has fits when I tell him he may have to work yet. +He's got land, you know; it's a fatal disease." + +"This is my real Goya," said Soames dryly. + +"By George! He WAS a swell. I saw a Goya in Munich once that +bowled me middle stump. A most evil-looking old woman in the most +gorgeous lace. HE made no compromise with the public taste. That +old boy was 'some' explosive; he must have smashed up a lot of +convention in his day. Couldn't he just paint! He makes Velasquez +stiff, don't you think?" + +"I have no Velasquez," said Soames. + +The young man stared. "No," he said; "only nations or profiteers +can afford him, I suppose. I say, why shouldn't all the bankrupt +nations sell their Velasquezes and Titians and other swells to the +profiteers by force, and then pass a law that any one who holds a +picture by an Old Master--see schedule--must hang it in a public +gallery? There seems something in that." + +"Shall we go down to tea?" said Soames. + +The young man's ears seemed to droop on his skull. 'He's not +dense,' thought Soames, following him off the premises. + +Goya, with his satiric and surpassing precision, his original +"line," and the daring of his light and shade, could have +reproduced to admiration the group assembled round Annette's tea- +tray in the ingle-nook below. He alone, perhaps, of painters would +have done justice to the sunlight filtering through a screen of +creeper, to the lovely pallor of brass, the old cut glasses, the +thin slices of lemon in pale amber tea; justice to Annette in her +black lacey dress; there was something of the fair Spaniard in her +beauty, though it lacked the spirituality of that rare type; to +Winifred's grey-haired, corseted solidity; to Soames, of a certain +grey and flat-cheeked distinction; to the vivacious Michael Mont, +pointed in ear and eye; to Imogen, dark, luscious of glance, +growing a little stout; to Prosper Profond, with his expression as +who should say: "Well, Mr. Goya, what's the use of paintin' this +small party?" finally, to Jack Cardigan, with his shining stare +and tanned sanguinity betraying the moving principle: "I'm +English, and I live to be fit." + +Curious, by the way, that Imogen, who as a girl had declared +solemnly one day at Timothy's that she would never marry a good +man--they were so dull--should have married Jack Cardigan, in whom +health had so destroyed all traces of original sin, that she might +have retired to rest with ten thousand other Englishmen without +knowing the difference from the one she had chosen to repose +beside. "Oh!" she would say of him, in her "amusing" way; "Jack +keeps himself so fearfully fit; he's never had a day's illness in +his life. He went right through the war without a finger-ache. You +really can't imagine how fit he is!" Indeed, he was so "fit" that +he couldn't see when she was flirting, which was such a comfort in +a way. All the same she was quite fond of him, so far as one could +be of a sports-machine, and of the two little Cardigans made after +his pattern. Her eyes just then were comparing him maliciously +with Prosper Profond. There was no "small" sport or game which +Monsieur Profond had not played at too, it seemed, from skittles +to harpon-fishing, and worn out every one. Imogen would sometimes +wish that they had worn out Jack, who continued to play at them +and talk of them with the simple zeal of a schoolgirl learning +hockey; at the age of Great-uncle Timothy she well knew that Jack +would be playing carpet golf in her bedroom, and "wiping +somebody's eye." + +He was telling them now how he had "pipped the pro--a charmin' +fellow, playin' a very good game," at the last hole this morning; +and how he had pulled down to Caversham since lunch, and trying to +incite Prosper Profond to play him a set of tennis after tea--do +him good--"keep him fit." + +"But what's the use of keepin' fit?" said Monsieur Profond. + +"Yes, sir," murmured Michael Mont, "what do you keep fit for?" + +"Jack," cried Imogen, enchanted, "what do you keep fit for?" + +Jack Cardigan stared with all his health. The questions were like +the buzz of a mosquito, and he put up his hand to wipe them away. +During the War, of course, he had kept fit to kill Germans; now +that it was over he either did not know, or shrank in delicacy +from explanation of his moving principle. + +"But he's right," said Monsieur Profond unexpectedly, "there's +nothin' left but keepin' fit." + +The saying, too deep for Sunday afternoon, would have passed +unanswered, but for the mercurial nature of young Mont. + +"Good!" he cried. "That's the great discovery of the war. We all +thought we were progressing--now we know we're only changing." + +"For the worse," said Monsieur Profond genially. + +"How you are cheerful, Prosper!" murmured Annette. + +"You come and play tennis!" said Jack Cardigan; "you've got the +hump. We'll soon take that down. D'you play, Mr. Mont?" + +"I hit the ball about, sir." + +At this juncture Soames rose, ruffled in that deep instinct of +preparation for the future which guided his existence. + +"When Fleur comes--" he heard Jack Cardigan say. + +Ah! and why didn't she come? He passed through drawing-room, hall, +and porch out onto the drive, and stood there listening for the +car. All was still and Sunday-fied; the lilacs in full flower +scented the air. There were white clouds, like the feathers of +ducks gilded by the sunlight. Memory of the day when Fleur was +born, and he had waited in such agony with her life and her +mother's balanced in his hands, came to him sharply. He had saved +her then, to be the flower of his life. And now! Was she going to +give him trouble--pain--give him trouble? He did not like the look +of things! A blackbird broke in on his reverie with an evening +song--a great big fellow up in that acacia-tree. Soames had taken +quite an interest in his birds of late years; he and Fleur would +walk round and watch them; her eyes were sharp as needles, and she +knew every nest. He saw her dog, a retriever, lying on the drive +in a patch of sunlight, and called to him, "Hallo, old fellow-- +waiting for her too!" The dog came slowly with a grudging tail, +and Soames mechanically laid a pat on his head. The dog, the bird, +the lilac all were part of Fleur for him; no more, no less. 'Too +fond of her!' he thought, 'too fond!' He was like a man uninsured, +with his ships at sea. Uninsured again--as in that other time, so +long ago, when he would wander dumb and jealous in the wilderness +of London, longing for that woman--his first wife--he mother of +this infernal boy. Ah! There was the car at last! It drew up, it +had luggage, but no Fleur. + +"Miss Fleur is walking up, sir, by the towing-path" + +Walking all those miles? Soames stared. The man's face had the +beginning of a smile on it. What was he grinning at? And very +quickly he turned, saying: "All right, Sims!" and went into the +house. He mounted to the picture-gallery once more. He had from +there a view of the river bank, and stood with his eyes fixed on +it, oblivious of the fact that it would be an hour at least before +her figure showed there. Walking up! And that fellow's grin! The +boy--! He turned abruptly from the window. He couldn't spy on her. +If she wanted to keep things from him--she must; he could not spy +on her. His heart felt empty; and bitterness mounted from it into +his very mouth. The staccato shouts of Jack Cardigan pursuing the +ball, the laugh of young Mont rose in the stillness and came in. +He hoped they were making that chap Profond run. And the girl in +"La Vendimia" stood with her arm akimbo and her dreamy eyes +looking past him. 'I've done all I could for you,' he thought, +'since you were no higher than my knee. You aren't going to--to-- +hurt me, are you?' + +But the Goya copy answered not, brilliant in colour just beginning +to tone down. 'There's no real life in it,' thought Soames. 'Why +doesn't she come?' + + + + + +X + +TRIO + + +Among those four Forsytes of the third, and, as one might say, +fourth generation, at Wansdon under the Downs, a week-end +prolonged unto the ninth day had stretched the crossing threads of +tenacity almost to snapping-point. Never had Fleur been so "FINE," +Holly so watchful, Val so stable-secretive, Jon so silent and +disturbed. What he learned of farming in that week might have been +balanced on the point of a pen-knife and puffed off. He, whose +nature was essentially averse to intrigue, and whose adoration of +Fleur disposed him to think that any need for concealing it was +"skittles," chafed and fretted, yet obeyed, taking what relief he +could in the few moments when they were alone. On Thursday, while +they were standing in the bay window of the drawing-room, dressed +for dinner, she said to him: + +"Jon, I'm going home on Sunday by the 3.40 from Paddington; if you +were to go home on SATURDAY you could come up on Sunday and take +me down, and just get back here by the last train, after. You WERE +going home anyway, weren't you?" + +Jon nodded. + +"Anything to be with you," he said; "only why need I pretend--" + +Fleur slipped her little finger into his palm: + +"You have no instinct, Jon; you MUST leave things to me. It's +serious about our people. We've simply got to be secret at +present, if we want to be together." The door was opened, and she +added loudly: "You ARE a duffer, Jon." + +Something turned over within Jon; he could not bear this +subterfuge about a feeling so natural, so overwhelming, and so +sweet. + +On Friday night about eleven he had packed his bag, and was +leaning out of his window, half miserable and half lost in a dream +of Paddington station, when he heard a tiny sound, as of a finger- +nail tapping on his door. He rushed to it and listened. Again the +sound. It WAS a nail. He opened. Oh! What a lovely thing came in! + +"I wanted to show you my fancy dress," it said, and struck an +attitude at the foot of his bed. Jon drew a long breath and leaned +against the door. The apparition wore white muslin on its head, a +fichu round its bare neck over a wine-coloured dress, fulled out +below its slender waist. It held one arm akimbo, and the other +raised right-angled holding a fan which touched its head. + +"This ought to be a basket of grapes," it whispered, "but I +haven't got it here. It's my Goya dress. And this is the attitude +in the picture. Do you like it?" + +"It's a dream." + +The apparition pirouetted. "Touch it, and see." + +Jon knelt down and took the skirt reverently. + +"Grape colour," came the whisper, "all grapes--La Vendimia--the +vintage." + +Jon's fingers scarcely touched each side of the waist; he looked +up, with adoring eyes. + +"Oh! Jon," it whispered; bent, kissed his forehead, pirouetted +again, and,--gliding out, was gone. + +Jon stayed on his knees, and his head fell forward against the +bed. How long he stayed like that he did not know. The little +noises of the tapping nail, the feet, the skirts rustling--as in a +dream--went on about him; and before his closed eyes the figure +stood and smiled and whispered, a faint perfume of narcissus +lingering in the air. And his forehead where it had been kissed +had a little cool place between the brows, like the imprint of a +flower. Love filled his soul, that love of boy for girl which +knows so little, hopes so much, would not brush the down off for +the world, and must become in time a fragrant memory--a searing +passion--a humdrum mateship--or, once in many times, vintage full +and sweet with sunset colour on the grapes. + +Enough has been said about Jon Forsyte here and in another place +to show what long marches lay between him and his great-great- +grandfather, the first Jolyon, in Dorset down by the sea. Jon was +sensitive as a girl, more sensitive than nine out of ten girls of +the day; imaginative as one of his half-sister June's "lame duck" +painters; affectionate as a son of his father and his mother +naturally would be. And yet, in his inner tissue, there was +something of the old founder of his family, a secret tenacity of +soul, a dread of showing his feelings, a determination not to know +when he was beaten. Sensitive, imaginative, affectionate boys get +a bad time at school, but Jon had instinctively kept his nature +dark, and been but normally unhappy there. Only with his mother +had he, up till then, been absolutely frank and natural; and when +he went home to Robin Hill that Saturday his heart was heavy +because Fleur had said that he must not be frank and natural with +her from whom he had never yet kept anything, must not even tell +her that they had met again, unless he found that she knew +already. So intolerable did this seem to him that he was very near +to telegraphing an excuse and staying up in London. And the first +thing his mother said to him was: + +"So you've had our little friend of the confectioner's there, Jon. +What is she like on second thoughts?" + +With relief, and a high colour, Jon answered: + +"Oh! awfully jolly, Mum." + +Her arm pressed his. + +Jon had never loved her so much as in that minute which seemed to +falsify Fleur's fears and to release his soul. He turned to look +at her, but something in her smiling face--something which only he +perhaps would have caught--stopped the words bubbling up in him. +Could fear go with a smile? If so, there was fear in her face. And +out of Jon tumbled quite other words, about farming, Holly, and +the Downs. Talking fast, he waited for her to come back to Fleur. +But she did not. Nor did his father mention her, though of course +he, too, must know. What deprivation, and killing of reality was +in this silence about Fleur--when he was so full of her, when his +mother was so full of Jon, and his father so full of his mother! +And so the trio spent the evening of that Saturday. + +After dinner his mother played; she seemed to play all the things +he liked best, and he sat with one knee clasped, and his hair +standing up where his fingers had run through it. He gazed at his +mother while she played, but he saw Fleur--Fleur in the moonlit +orchard, Fleur in the sunlit gravel-pit, Fleur in that fancy +dress, swaying, whispering, stooping, kissing his forehead. Once, +while he listened, he forgot himself and glanced at his father in +that other easy chair. What was Dad looking like that for? The +expression on his face was so sad and puzzling. It filled him with +a sort of remorse, so that he got up and went and sat on the arm +of his father's chair. From there he could not see his face; and +again he saw Fleur--in his mother's hands, slim and white on the +keys, in the profile of her face and her powdery hair; and down +the long room in the open window where the May night walked +outside. + +When he went up to bed his mother came into his room. She stood at +the window, and said: + +"Those cypresses your grandfather planted down there have done +wonderfully. I always think they look beautiful under a dropping +moon. I wish you had known your grandfather, Jon." + +"Were you married to Father, when he was alive?" asked Jon +suddenly. + +"No, dear; he died in '92--very old--eighty-five, I think." + +"Is Father like him?" + +"A little, but more subtle, and not quite so solid." + +"I know, from Grandfather's portrait; who painted that?" + +"One of June's 'lame ducks.' But it's quite good." + +Jon slipped his hand through his Mother's arm. "Tell me about the +family quarrel, Mum." + +He felt her arm quivering. "No, dear; that's for your father some +day, if he thinks fit." + +"Then it WAS serious," said Jon, with a catch in his breath. + +"Yes." And there was a silence, during which neither knew whether +the arm or the hand within it were quivering most. + +"Some people," said Irene softly, "think the moon on her back is +evil; to me she's always lovely. Look at those cypress shadows! +Jon, Father says we may go to Italy, you and I, for two months. +Would you like?" + +Jon took his hand from under her arm; his sensation was so sharp +and so confused. Italy with his Mother! A fortnight ago it would +have been perfection; now it filled him with dismay; he felt that +the sudden suggestion had to do with Fleur. He stammered out: + +"Oh! yes; only--I don't know. Ought I--now I've just begun? I'd +like to think it over." + +Her voice answered, cool and gentle: + +"Yes, dear; think it over. But better now than when you've begun +farming seriously. Italy with you--! It would be nice!" + +Jon put his arm round her waist, still slim and firm as a girl's. + +"Do you think you ought to leave Father?" he said feebly, feeling +very mean. + +"Father suggested it; he thinks you ought to see Italy at least +before you settle down to anything." + +The sense of meanness died in Jon; he knew, yes--he knew--that his +father and his mother were not speaking frankly, no more than he +himself. They wanted to keep him from Fleur! His heart hardened. +And, as if she felt that process going on, his mother said: + +"Good-night, darling. Have a good sleep and think it over. But it +would be lovely!" + +She pressed him to her so quickly that he did not see her face. +Jon stood feeling exactly as he used to when he was a naughty +little boy; sore because he was not loving, and because he was +justified in his own eyes. + +But Irene, after she had stood a moment in her own room, passed +through the dressing-room between it and her husband's. + +"Well?" + +"He will think it over, Jolyon." + +Watching her lips that wore a little drawn smile, Jolyon said +quietly: + +"You had better let me tell him, and have done with it. After all, +Jon has the instincts of a gentleman. He has only to understand--" + +"Only! He can't understand; that's impossible." + +"I believe I could have at his age." + +Irene caught his hand. "You were always more of a realist than +Jon; and never so innocent." + +"That's true," said Jolyon. "It's queer, isn't it? You and I would +tell our stories to the world without a particle of shame; but our +own boy stumps us." + +"We've never cared whether the world approves or not." + +"Jon would not disapprove of US!" + +"Oh! Jolyon, yes. He's in love, I feel he's in love. And he'd say: +'My mother once married WITHOUT LOVE! How could she have!' It'll +seem to him a crime! And so it was!" + +Jolyon took her hand, and said with a wry smile: + +"Ah! why on earth are we born young? Now, if only we were born old +and grew younger year by year we should understand how things +happen, and drop all our cursed intolerance. But you know if the +boy is really in love, he won't forget, even if he goes to Italy. +We're a tenacious breed; and he'll know by instinct why he's being +sent. Nothing will really cure him but the shock of being told." + +"Let me try, anyway." + +Jolyon stood a moment without speaking. Between this devil and +this deep sea--the pain of a dreaded disclosure and the grief of +losing his wife for two months--he secretly hoped for the devil; +yet if she wished for the deep sea he must put up with it. After +all, it would be training for that departure from which there +would be no return. And, taking her in his arms, he kissed her +eyes, and said: + +"As you will, my love." + + + + + +XI + +DUET + + +That "small" emotion, love, grows amazingly when threatened with +extinction. Jon reached Paddington station half an hour before his +time and a full week after, as it seemed to him. He stood at the +appointed book-stall amid a crowd of Sunday travellers, in a +Harris tweed suit exhaling, as it were, the emotion of his +thumping heart. He read the names of the novels on the bookstall, +and bought one at last, to avoid being regarded with suspicion by +the book-stall clerk. It was called "The Heart of the Trail" which +must mean something, though it did not seem to. He also bought +"The Lady's Mirror" and "The Landsman." Every minute was an hour +long, and full of horrid imaginings. After nineteen had passed, he +saw her with a bag and a porter wheeling her luggage. She came +swiftly; she came cool. She greeted him as if he were a brother. + +"First class," she said to the porter, "corner seats; opposite." + +Jon admired her frightful self-possession. + +"Can't we get a carriage to ourselves?" he whispered. + +"No good; it's a stopping train. After Maidenhead perhaps. Look +natural, Jon." + +Jon screwed his features into a scowl. They got in--with two +other beasts!--oh! heaven! He tipped the porter unnaturally, in +his confusion. The brute deserved nothing for putting them in +there, and looking as if he knew all about it into the bargain. + +Fleur hid herself behind "The Lady's Mirror." Jon imitated her +behind "The Landsman." The train started. Fleur let "The Lady's +Mirror" fall and leaned forward. "Well?" she said. + +"It's seemed about fifteen days." + +She nodded, and Jon's face lighted up at once. + +"Look natural," murmured Fleur, and went off into a bubble of +laughter. It hurt him. How could he look natural with Italy +hanging over him? He had meant to break it to her gently, but now +he blurted it out. + +"They want me to go to Italy with Mother for two months." + +Fleur drooped her eyelids; turned a little pale, and bit her lips. + +"Oh!" she said. It was all, but it was much. + +That "Oh!" was like the quick drawback of the wrist in fencing +ready for riposte. It came. + +"You must go!" + +"Go?" said Jon in a strangled voice. + +"Of course." + +"But--two months--it's ghastly." + +"No," said Fleur, "six weeks. You'll have forgotten me by then. +We'll meet in the National Gallery the day after you get back." + +Jon laughed. + +"But suppose you've forgotten ME," he muttered into the noise of +the train. + +Fleur shook her head. + +"Some other beast--" murmured Jon. + +Her foot touched his. + +"No other beast," she said, lifting the "Lady's Mirror." + +The train stopped; two passengers got out, and one got in. + +'I shall die,' thought Jon, 'if we're not alone at all.' + +The train went on; and again Fleur leaned forward. + +"I never let go," she said; "do you?" + +Jon shook his head vehemently. + +"Never!" he said. "Will you write to me?" + +"No; but YOU can--to my club." + +She had a Club; she was wonderful! + +"Did you pump Holly?" he muttered. + +"Yes, but got nothing. I didn't dare pump hard." + +"What can it be?" cried Jon. + +"I shall find out all right." + +A long silence followed till Fleur said: "This is Maidenhead, +stand by, Jon!" + +The train stopped. The remaining passenger got out. Fleur drew +down her blind. + +"Quick!" she cried. "Hang out! Look as much of a beast as you +can." + +Jon blew his nose, and scowled; never in all his life had he +scowled like that! An old lady recoiled, a young one tried the +handle. It turned, but the lock would not open. The train moved, +the young lady darted to another carriage. + +"What luck!" cried Jon. "It jammed." + +"Yes," said Fleur; "I was holding it." + +The train moved out, and Jon fell on his knees. + +"Look out for the corridor," she whispered; "and--quick!" + +Her lips met his. And though their kiss only lasted perhaps ten +seconds Jon's soul left his body and went so far beyond that, when +he was again sitting opposite that demure figure, he was pale as +death. He heard her sigh, and the sound seemed to him the most +precious he had ever heard--an exquisite declaration that he meant +something to her. + +"Six weeks isn't really long," she said; "and you can easily make +it six if you keep your head out there, and never seem to think of +me." + +Jon gasped. + +"This is just what's really wanted, Jon, to convince them, don't +you see? If we're just as bad when you come back they'll stop +being ridiculous about it. Only, I'm sorry it's not Spain; there's +a girl in a Goya picture at Madrid who's like me, Father says. +Only she isn't--we've got a copy of her." + +It was to Jon like a ray of sunshine piercing through a fog. "I'll +make it Spain," he said, "Mother won't mind; she's never been +there. And my father thinks a lot of Goya." + +"Oh! yes, he's a painter--isn't he?" + +"Only water-colour," said Jon, with honesty. + +"When we come to Reading, Jon, get out first and go down to +Caversham lock and wait for me. I'll send the car home and we'll +walk by the towing-path." + +Jon seized her hand in gratitude, and they sat silent, with the +world well lost, and one eye on the corridor. But the train seemed +to run twice as fast now, and its sound was almost lost in that of +Jon's sighing. + +"We're getting near," said Fleur; "the towing-path's awfully +exposed. One more! Oh! Jon, don't forget me." + +Jon answered with his kiss. And very soon, a flushed, distracted- +looking youth could have been seen--as they say--leaping from the +train and hurrying along the platform, searching his pockets for +his ticket. + +When at last she rejoined him on the towing-path a little beyond +Caversham lock he had made an effort, and regained some measure of +equanimity. If they had to part, he would not make a scene! A +breeze by the bright river threw the white side of the willow +leaves up into the sunlight, and followed those two with its faint +rustle. + +"I told our chauffeur that I was train-giddy," said Fleur. "Did +you look pretty natural as you went out?" "I don't know. What is +natural?" + +"It's natural to you to look seriously happy. When I first saw you +I thought you weren't a bit like other people." + +"Exactly what I thought when I saw you. I knew at once I should +never love anybody else." + +Fleur laughed. + +"We're absurdly young. And love's young dream is out of date, Jon. +Besides, it's awfully wasteful. Think of all the fun you might +have. You haven't begun, even; it's a shame, really. And there's +me. I wonder!" + +Confusion came on Jon's spirit. How could she say such things just +as they were going to part? + +"If you feel like that," he said, "I can't go. I shall tell Mother +that I ought to try and work. There's always the condition of the +world!" + +"The condition of the world!" + +Jon thrust his hands deep into his pockets. + +"But there is," he said; "think of the people starving!" + +Fleur shook her head. "No, no, I never, never will make myself +miserable for nothing." + +"Nothing! But there's an awful state of things, and of course one +ought to help." + +"Oh! yes, I know all that. But you can't help people, Jon; they're +hopeless. When you pull them out of a hole they only get into +another. Look at them, still fighting and plotting and struggling, +though they're dying in heaps all the time. Idiots!" + +"Aren't you sorry for them?" + +"Oh! sorry--yes, but I'm not going to make myself unhappy about +it; that's no good." + +And they were silent, disturbed by this first glimpse of each +other's natures. + +"I think people are brutes and idiots," said Fleur stubbornly. + +"I think they're poor wretches," said Jon. It was as if they had +quarrelled--and at this supreme and awful moment, with parting +visible out there in that last gap of the willows! + +"Well, go and help your poor wretches, and don't think of me." + +Jon stood still. Sweat broke out on his forehead, and his limbs +trembled. Fleur too had stopped, and was frowning at the river. + +"I MUST believe in things," said Jon with a sort of agony;" we're +all meant to enjoy life." + +Fleur laughed: "Yes; and that's what you won't do, if you don't +take care. But perhaps your idea of enjoyment is to make yourself +wretched. There are lots of people like that, of course." + +She was pale, her eyes had darkened, her lips had thinned. Was it +Fleur thus staring at the water? Jon had an unreal feeling as if +he were passing through the scene in a book where the lover has to +choose between love and duty. But just then she looked round at +him. Never was anything so intoxicating as that vivacious look. It +acted on him exactly as the tug of a chain acts on a dog--brought +him up to her with his tail wagging and his tongue out. + +"Don't let's be silly," she said, "time's too short. Look, Jon, +you can just see where I've got to cross the river. There, round +the bend, where the woods begin." + +Jon saw a gable, a chimney or two, a patch of wall through the +trees--and felt his heart sink. + +"I mustn't dawdle any more. It's no good going beyond the next +hedge, it gets all open. Let's get on to it and say good-bye." + +They went side by side, hand in hand, silently towards the hedge, +where the mayflower, both pink and white, was in full bloom. + +"My Club's the 'Talisman,' Stratton Street, Piccadilly. Letters +there will be quite safe, and I'm almost always up once a week." + +Jon nodded. His face had become extremely set, his eyes stared +straight before him. + +"To-day's the twenty-third of May," said Fleur; "on the ninth of +July I shall be in front of the 'Bacchus and Ariadne' at three +o'clock; will you?" + +"I will." + +"If you feel as bad as I it's all right. Let those people pass!" + +A man and woman airing their children went by strung out in Sunday +fashion. + +The last of them passed the wicket gate. + +"Domesticity!" said Fleur, and blotted herself against the +hawthorn hedge. The blossom sprayed out above her head, and one +pink cluster brushed her cheek. Jon put up his hand jealously to +keep it off. + +"Good-bye, Jon!" For a second they stood with hands hard clasped. +Then their lips met for the third time, and when they parted Fleur +broke away and fled through the wicket gate. Jon stood where she +had left him, with his forehead against that pink cluster. Gone! +For an eternity--for seven weeks all but two days! And here he +was, wasting the last sight of her! He rushed to the gate. She was +walking swiftly on the heels of the straggling children. She +turned her head, he saw her hand make a little flitting gesture; +then she sped on, and the trailing family blotted her out from his +view. + +The words of a comic song-- + + "Paddington groan--worst ever known-- + He gave a sepulchral Paddington groan--" + +came into his head, and he sped incontinently back to Reading +station. All the way up to London and down to Wansdon he sat with +"The Heart of the Trail" open on his knee, knitting in his head a +poem so full of feeling that it would not rhyme. + + + + + +XII + +CAPRICE + + +Fleur sped on. She had need of rapid motion; she was late, and +wanted all her wits about her when she got in. She passed the +islands, the station, and hotel, and was about to take the ferry, +when she saw a skiff with a young man standing up in it, and +holding to the bushes. + +"Miss Forsyte," he said; "let me put you across. I've come on +purpose." + +She looked at him in blank amazement. + +"It's all right, I've been having tea with your people. I thought +I'd save you the last bit. It's on my way, I'm just off back to +Pangbourne. My name's Mont. I saw you at the picture-gallery--you +remember--when your father invited me to see his pictures." + +"Oh!" said Fleur; "yes--the handkerchief." + +To this young man she owed Jon; and, taking his hand, she stepped +down into the skiff. Still emotional, and a little out of breath, +she sat silent; not so the young man. She had never heard any one +say so much in so short a time. He told her his age, twenty-four, +his weight, ten stone eleven; his place of residence, not far +away; described his sensations under fire, and what it felt like +to be gassed; criticised the Juno, mentioned his own conception of +that goddess; commented on the Goya copy, said Fleur was not too +awfully like it; sketched in rapidly the condition of England; +spoke of Monsieur Profond--or whatever his name was--as "an awful +sport"; thought her father had some ripping pictures and some +rather "dug-up"; hoped he might row down again and take her on the +river because he was quite trustworthy; inquired her opinion of +Tchekov, gave her his own; wished they could go to the Russian +ballet together some time--considered the name Fleur Forsyte +simply topping; cursed his people for giving him the name of +Michael on the top of Mont; outlined his father, and said that if +she wanted a good book she should read "Job"; his father was +rather like Job while Job still had land. + +"But Job didn't have land," Fleur murmured; "he only had flocks +and herds and moved on." + +"Ah!" answered Michael Mont, "I wish my gov'nor would move on. Not +that I want his land. Land's an awful bore in these days, don't +you think?" + +"We never have it in my family," said Fleur. "We have everything +else. I believe one of my great-uncles once had a sentimental farm +in Dorset, because we came from there originally, but it cost him +more than it made him happy." + +"Did he sell it?" + +"No; he kept it." + +"Why?" + +"Because nobody would buy it." + +"Good for the old boy!" + +"No, it wasn't good for him. Father says it soured him. His name +was Swithin." + +"What a corking name!" + +"Do you know," said Fleur, "that we're getting farther off, not +nearer? This river flows." + +"Splendid!" cried Mont, dipping his sculls vaguely; "it's good to +meet a girl who's got wit." + +"But better to meet a young man who's got it in the plural." + +Young Mont raised a hand to tear his hair. + +"Look out!" cried Fleur. "Your scull!" + +"All right! It's thick enough to bear a scratch." + +"Do you mind sculling?" said Fleur severely, "I want to get in." + +"Ah! but when you get in, you see, I shan't see you any more to- +day. Fini, as the French girl said when she jumped on her bed +after saying her prayers. Don't you bless the day that gave you a +French mother, and a name like yours?" + +"I like my name, but Father gave it me. Mother wanted me called +Marguerite." + +"Which is absurd. Do you mind calling me M. M. and letting me call +you F. F.? It's in the spirit of the age." + +"I don't mind anything, so long as I get in." Mont caught a little +crab, and answered: "That was a nasty one!" + +"Please row." + +"I am." And he did for several strokes, looking at her with rueful +eagerness. "Of course, you know," he ejaculated, pausing, "that I +came to see you, not your father's pictures." + +Fleur rose. + +"If you don't row, I shall get out and swim." + +"Really and truly? Then I could come in after you." + +"Mr. Mont, I'm late and tired; please put me on shore at once." + +When she stepped out on to the garden landing-stage he rose, and +grasping his hair with both hands, looked at her. + +Fleur smiled. + +"Don't!" cried the irrepressible Mont. "I know you're going to +say: 'Out, damned hair!'" + +Fleur whisked round, threw him a wave of her hand. "Good-bye, Mr. +M. M.!" she called, and was gone among the rose-trees. She looked +at her wrist-watch and the windows of the house. It struck her as +curiously uninhabited. Past six! The pigeons were just gathering +to roost, and sunlight slanted on the dove-cot, on their snowy +feathers, and beyond in a shower on the top boughs of the woods. +The click of billiard-balls came from the ingle-nook--Jack +Cardigan, no doubt; a faint rustling, too, from an eucalyptus- +tree, startling Southerner in this old English garden. She reached +the verandah, and was passing in, but stopped at the sound of +voices from the drawing-room to her left. Mother! Profond! From +behind the verandah screen which fenced the ingle-nook she heard +these words! + +"I don't, Annette." + +Did Father know that he called her mother "Annette"? Always on the +side of her father--as children are ever on one side or the other +in houses where relations are a little strained--she stood, +uncertain. Her mother was speaking in her low, pleasing, slightly +metallic voice--one word she caught: "Demain." And Profond's +answer: "All right." Fleur frowned. A little sound came out into +the stillness. Then Profond's voice: "I'm takin' a small stroll." + +Fleur darted through the window into the morning room. There he +came--from the drawing-room, crossing the verandah, down the lawn; +and the click of billiard-balls which, in listening for other +sounds, she had ceased to hear, began again. She shook herself, +passed into the hall, and opened the drawing-room door. Her mother +was sitting on the sofa between the windows, her knees crossed, +her head resting on a cushion, her lips half parted, her eyes half +closed. She looked extraordinarily handsome. + +"Ah! Here you are, Fleur! Your father is beginning to fuss." + +"Where is he?" + +"In the picture-gallery. Go up!" + +"What are you going to do to-morrow, Mother?" + +"To-morrow? I go up to London with your aunt. Why?" + +"I thought you might be. Will you get me a quite plain parasol?" + +"What color?" + +"Green. They're all going back, I suppose." + +"Yes, all; you will console your father. Kiss me, then." + +Fleur crossed the room, stooped, received a kiss on her forehead, +and went out past the impress of a form on the sofa-cushions in +the other corner. She ran up-stairs. + +Fleur was by no means the old-fashioned daughter who demands the +regulation of her parents' lives in accordance with the standard +imposed on herself. She claimed to regulate her own life, not +those of others; besides, an unerring instinct for what was likely +to advantage her own case was already at work. In a disturbed +domestic atmosphere the heart she had set on Jon would have a +better chance. None the less was she offended, as a flower by a +crisping wind. If that man had really been kissing her mother it +was--serious, and her father ought to know. + +"Demain!" "All right!" And her mother going up to Town! She turned +in to her bedroom and hung out of the window to cool her face, +which had suddenly grown very hot. Jon must be at the station by +now! What did her father know about Jon! Probably everything-- +pretty nearly! + +She changed her dress, so as to look as if she had been in some +time, and ran up to the gallery. + +Soames was standing stubbornly still before his Alfred Stevens-- +the picture he loved best. He did not turn at the sound of the +door, but she knew he had heard, and she knew he was hurt. She +came up softly behind him, put her arms round his neck, and poked +her face over his shoulder, till her cheek lay against his. It was +an advance which had never yet failed, but it failed her now, and +she augured the worst. + +"Well," he said stonily, "so you've come!" + +"Is that all," murmured Fleur, "from a bad parent?" and rubbed her +cheek against his. + +Soames shook his head so far as that was possible. + +"Why do you keep me on tenterhooks like this, putting me off and +off?" + +"Darling, it was very harmless." + +"Harmless! Much you know what's harmless and what isn't." + +Fleur dropped her arms. + +"Well, then, dear, suppose you tell me; and be quite frank about +it." + +And she went over to the window-seat. + +Her father had turned from his picture, and was staring at his +feet. He looked very grey. 'He has nice small feet,' she thought, +catching his eye, at once averted from her. + +"You're my only comfort," said Soames suddenly, "and you go on +like this." + +Fleur's heart began to beat. + +"Like what, dear?" + +Again Soames gave her a look which, but for the affection in it, +might have been called furtive. + +"You know what I told you," he said. "I don't choose to have +anything to do with that branch of our family." + +"Yes, ducky, but I don't know why _I_ shouldn't." + +Soames turned on his heel. + +"I'm not going into the reasons," he said; "you ought to trust me, +Fleur!" + +The way he spoke those words affected Fleur, but she thought of +Jon, and was silent, tapping her foot against the wainscot. +Unconsciously she had assumed a modern attitude, with one leg +twisted in and out of the other, with her chin on one bent wrist, +her other arm across her chest, and its hand hugging her elbow; +there was not a line of her that was not involuted, and yet--in +spite of all--she retained a certain grace. + +"You knew my wishes," Soames went on, "and yet you stayed on there +four days. And I suppose that boy came with you to-day." + +Fleur kept her eyes on him. + +"I don't ask you anything," said Soames; "I make no inquisition +where you're concerned." + +Fleur suddenly stood up, leaning out at the window with her chin +on her hands. The sun had sunk behind trees, the pigeons were +perched, quite still, on the edge of the dove-cot; the click of +the billiard-balls mounted, and a faint radiance shone out below +where Jack Cardigan had turned the light up. + +"Will it make you any happier," she said suddenly, "if I promise +you not to see him for say--the next six weeks?" She was not +prepared for a sort of tremble in the blankness of his voice. + +"Six weeks? Six years--sixty years more like. Don't delude +yourself, Fleur; don't delude yourself!" + +Fleur turned in alarm. + +"Father, what is it?" + +Soames came close enough to see her face. + +"Don't tell me," he said, "that you're foolish enough to have any +feeling beyond caprice. That would be too much!" And he laughed. + +Fleur, who had never heard him laugh like that, thought: 'Then it +IS deep! Oh! what is it?' And putting her hand through his arm she +said lightly: + +"No, of course; caprice. Only, I like my caprices and I don't like +yours, dear." + +"Mine!" said Soames bitterly, and turned away. + +The light outside had chilled, and threw a chalky whiteness on the +river. The trees had lost all gaiety of colour. She felt a sudden +hunger for Jon's face, for his hands, and the feel of his lips +again on hers. And pressing her arms tight across her breast she +forced out a little light laugh. + +"O la! la! What a small fuss! as Profond would say. Father, I +don't like that man." + +She saw him stop, and take something out of his breast pocket. + +"You don't?" he said. "Why?" + +"Nothing," murmured Fleur; "just caprice!" + +"No," said Soames; "not caprice!" And he tore what was in his +hands across. "You're right. _I_ don't like him either!" + +"Look!" said Fleur softly. "There he goes! I hate his shoes; they +don't make any noise." + +Down in the failing light Prosper Profond moved, his hands in his +side pockets, whistling softly in his beard; he stopped, and +glanced up at the sky, as if saying: "I don't think much of that +small moon." + +Fleur drew back. "Isn't he a great cat?" she whispered; and the +sharp click of the billiard-balls rose, as if Jack Cardigan had +capped the cat, the moon, caprice, and tragedy with: "In off the +red!" + +Monsieur Profond had resumed his strolling, to a teasing little +tune in his beard. What was it? Oh! yes, from "Rigoletto": "Donna +e mobile." Just what he would think! She squeezed her father's +arm. + +"Prowling!" she muttered, as he turned the corner of the house. It +was past that disillusioned moment which divides the day and +night--still and lingering and warm, with hawthorn scent and lilac +scent clinging on the riverside air. A blackbird suddenly burst +out. Jon would be in London by now; in the Park perhaps, crossing +the Serpentine, thinking of her! A little sound beside her made +her turn her eyes; her father was again tearing the paper in his +hands. Fleur saw it was a cheque. + +"I shan't sell him my Gauguin," he said. "I don't know what your +aunt and Imogen see in him." + +"Or Mother." + +"Your mother!" said Soames. + +'Poor Father!' she thought. 'He never looks happy--not really +happy. I don't want to make him worse, but of course I shall have +to, when Jon comes back. Oh! well, sufficient unto the night!' + +"I'm going to dress," she said. + +In her room she had a fancy to put on her "freak" dress. It was of +gold tissue with little trousers of the same, tightly drawn in at +the ankles, a page's cape slung from the shoulders, little gold +shoes, and a gold-winged Mercury helmet; and all over her were +tiny gold bells, especially on the helmet; so that if she shook +her head she pealed. When she was dressed she felt quite sick +because Jon could not see her; it even seemed a pity that the +sprightly young man Michael Mont would not have a view. But the +gong had sounded, and she went down. + +She made a sensation in the drawing-room. Winifred thought it +"Most amusing." Imogen was enraptured. Jack Cardigan called it +"stunning," "ripping," "topping," and "corking." Monsieur Profond, +smiling with his eyes, said: "That's a nice small dress!" Her +mother, very handsome in black, sat looking at her, and said +nothing. It remained for her father to apply the test of common +sense. "What did you put on that thing for? You're not going to +dance." + +Fleur spun round, and the bells pealed. + +"Caprice!" + +Soames stared at her, and, turning away, gave his arm to Winifred. +Jack Cardigan took her mother. Prosper Profond took Imogen. Fleur +went in by herself, with her bells jingling.... + +The "small" moon had soon dropped down, and May night had fallen +soft and warm, enwrapping with its grape-bloom colour and its +scents the billion caprices, intrigues, passions, longings, and +regrets of men and women. Happy was Jack Cardigan who snored into +Imogen's white shoulder, fit as a flea; or Timothy in his +"mausoleum," too old for anything but baby's slumber. For so many +lay awake, or dreamed, teased by the crisscross of the world. + +The dew fell and the flowers closed; cattle grazed on in the river +meadows, feeling with their tongues for the grass they could not +see; and the sheep on the Downs lay quiet as stones. Pheasants in +the tall trees of the Pangbourne woods, larks on their grassy +nests above the gravel-pit at Wansdon, swallows in the eaves at +Robin Hill, and the sparrows of Mayfair, all made a dreamless +night of it, soothed by the lack of wind. The Mayfly filly, hardly +accustomed to her new quarters, scraped at her straw a little; and +the few night-flitting things--bats, moths, owls--were vigorous in +the warm darkness; but the peace of night lay in the brain of all +day-time Nature, colourless and still. Men and women, alone, +riding the hobbyhorses of anxiety or love, burned their wavering +tapers of dream and thought into the lonely hours. + +Fleur, leaning out of her window, heard the hall clock's muffled +chime of twelve, the tiny splash of a fish, the sudden shaking of +an aspen's leaves in the puffs of breeze that rose along the +river, the distant rumble of a night train, and time and again the +sounds which none can put a name to in the darkness, soft obscure +expressions of uncatalogued emotions from man and beast, bird and +machine, or, maybe, from departed Forsytes, Darties, Cardigans, +taking night strolls back into a world which had once suited their +embodied spirits. But Fleur heeded not these sounds, her spirit, +far from disembodied, fled with swift wing from railway-carriage +to flowery hedge, straining after Jon, tenacious of his forbidden +image, and the sound of his voice which was taboo. And she +crinkled her nose, retrieving from the perfume of the riverside +night that moment when his hand slipped between the mayflowers and +her cheek. Long she leaned out in her freak dress, keen to burn +her wings at life's candle; while the moths brushed her cheeks on +their pilgrimage to the lamp on her dressing-table, ignorant that +in a Forsyte's house there is no open flame. But at last even she +felt sleepy, and, forgetting her bells, drew quickly in. + +Through the open window of his room, alongside Annette's, Soames, +wakeful too, heard their thin faint tinkle, as it might be shaken +from stars, or the dewdrops falling from a flower, if one could +hear such sounds. + +'Caprice!' he thought. 'I can't tell. She's wilful. What shall I +do? Fleur!' + +And long into the "small" night he brooded. + + + + + +PART II + + +I + +MOTHER AND SON + + +To say that Jon Forsyte accompanied his mother to Spain +unwillingly would scarcely have been adequate. He went as a well- +natured dog goes for a walk with its mistress, leaving a choice +mutton-bone on the lawn. He went looking back at it. Forsytes +deprived of their mutton-bones are wont to sulk. But Jon had +little sulkiness in his composition. He adored his mother, and it +was his first travel. Spain had become Italy by his simply saying: +"I'd rather go to Spain, Mum; you've been to Italy so many times; +I'd like it new to both of us." + +The fellow was subtle besides being naif. He never forgot that he +was going to shorten the proposed two months into six weeks, and +must therefore show no sign of wishing to do so. For one with so +enticing a mutton-bone and so fixed an idea, he made a good enough +travelling companion, indifferent to where or when he arrived, +superior to food, and thoroughly appreciative of a country strange +to the most travelled Englishman. Fleur's wisdom in refusing to +write to him was profound, for he reached each new place entirely +without hope or fever, and could concentrate immediate attention +on the donkeys and tumbling bells, the priests, patios, beggars, +children, crowing cocks, sombreros, cactus hedges, old high white +villages, goats, olive-trees, greening plains, singing birds in +tiny cages, water-sellers, sunsets, melons, mules, great churches, +pictures, and swimming grey-brown mountains of a fascinating land. + +It was already hot, and they enjoyed an absence of their +compatriots. Jon, who, so far as he knew, had blood in him which +was not English, was often innately unhappy in the presence of his +own countrymen. He felt they had no nonsense about them, and took +a more practical view of things than himself. He confided to his +mother that he must be an unsociable beast--it was jolly to be +away from everybody who could talk about the things people did +talk about. To which Irene had replied simply: "Yes, Jon, I know." + +In this isolation he had unparalleled opportunities of +appreciating what few sons can apprehend, the whole-heartedness +of a mother's love. Knowledge of something kept from her made him, +no doubt, unduly sensitive; and a Southern people stimulated his +admiration for her type of beauty, which he had been accustomed to +hear called Spanish, but which he now perceived to be no such +thing. Her beauty was neither English, French, Spanish, nor +Italian--it was special! He appreciated, too, as never before, his +mother's subtlety of instinct. He could not tell, for instance, +whether she had noticed his absorption in that Goya picture, "La +Vendimia," or whether she knew that he had slipped back there +after lunch and again next morning, to stand before it full half +an hour, a second and third time. It was not Fleur, of course, but +like enough to give him heartache--so dear to lovers--remembering +her standing at the foot of his bed with her hand held above her +head. To keep a postcard reproduction of this picture in his +pocket and slip it out to look at became for Jon one of those bad +habits which soon or late disclose themselves to eyes sharpened by +love, fear, or jealousy. And his mother's were sharpened by all +three. In Granada he was fairly caught, sitting on a sun-warmed +stone bench in a little battlemented garden on the Alhambra hill, +whence he ought to have been looking at the view. His mother, he +had thought, was examining the potted stocks between the polled +acacias, when her voice said: + +"Is that your favourite Goya, Jon?" + +He checked, too late, a movement such as he might have made at +school to conceal some surreptitious document, and answered: +"Yes." + +"It certainly is most charming; but I think I prefer the +'Quitasol.' Your father would go crazy about Goya; I don't believe +he saw them when he was in Spain in '92." + +In '92--nine years before he had been born! What had been the +previous existences of his father and his mother? If they had a +right to share in his future, surely he had a right to share in +their pasts. He looked up at her. But something in her face--a +look of life hard-lived, the mysterious impress of emotions, +experience, and suffering--seemed with its incalculable depth, its +purchased sanctity, to make curiosity impertinent. His mother must +have had a wonderfully interesting life; she was so beautiful, and +so--so--but he could not frame what he felt about her. He got up, +and stood gazing down at the town, at the plain all green with +crops, and the ring of mountains glamorous in sinking sunlight. +Her life was like the past of this old Moorish city, full, deep, +remote--his own life as yet such a baby of a thing, hopelessly +ignorant and innocent! They said that in those mountains to the +west, which rose sheer from the blue-green plain, as if out of a +sea, Phoenicians had dwelt--a dark, strange, secret race, above +the land! His mother's life was as unknown to him, as secret, as +that Phoenician past was to the town down there, whose cocks +crowed and whose children played and clamoured so gaily, day in, +day out. He felt aggrieved that she should know all about him and +he nothing about her except that she loved him and his father, and +was beautiful. His callow ignorance--he had not even had the +advantage of the war, like nearly everybody else!--made him small +in his own eyes. + +That night, from the balcony of his bedroom, he gazed down on the +roof of the town--as if inlaid with honey-comb of jet, ivory, and +gold; and, long after, he lay awake, listening to the cry of the +sentry as the hours struck, and forming in his head these lines: + + "Voice in the night crying, down in the old sleeping + Spanish city darkened under her white stars! + What says the voice--its clear--lingering anguish? + + Just the watchman, telling his dateless tale of safety? + Just a roadman, flinging to the moon his song? + No! 'Tis one deprived, whose lover's heart is weeping. + Just his cry: 'How long?'" + +The word "deprived" seemed to him cold and unsatisfactory, but +bereaved was too final, and no other word of two syllables short- +long came to him, which would enable him to keep "whose lover's +heart is weeping." It was past two by the time he had finished it, +and past three before he went to sleep, having said it over to +himself at least twenty-four times. Next day he wrote it out and +enclosed it in one of those letters to Fleur, which he always +finished before he went down, so as to have his mind free and +companionable. + +About noon that same day, on the tiled terrace of their hotel, he +felt a sudden dull pain in the back of his head, a queer sensation +in the eyes, and sickness. The sun had touched him too +affectionately. The next three days were passed in semi-darkness, +and a dulled, aching indifference to all except the feel of ice on +his forehead and his mother's smile. She never moved from his +room, never relaxed her noiseless vigilance, which seemed to Jon +angelic. But there were moments when he was extremely sorry for +himself, and wished terribly that Fleur could see him. Several +times he took a poignant imaginary leave of her and of the earth, +tears oozing out of his eyes. He even prepared the message he +would send to her by his mother--who would regret to her dying day +that she had ever sought to separate them--his poor mother! He was +not slow, however, in perceiving that he had now his excuse for +going home. + +Towards half past six each evening came a "gasgacha" of bells--a +cascade of tumbling chimes, mounting from the city below and +falling back chime on chime. After listening to them on the fourth +day he said suddenly: + +"I'd like to be back in England, Mum, the sun's too hot." + +"Very well, darling. As soon as you're fit to travel." And at once +he felt better, and--meaner. + +They had been out five weeks when they turned towards home. Jon's +head was restored to its pristine clarity, but he was confined to +a hat lined by his mother with many layers of orange and green +silk, and he still walked from choice in the shade. As the long +struggle of discretion between them drew to its close, he wondered +more and more whether she could see his eagerness to get back to +that which she had brought him away from. Condemned by Spanish +Providence to spend a day in Madrid between their trains, it was +but natural to go again to the Prado. Jon was elaborately casual +this time before his Goya girl. Now that he was going back to her, +he could afford a lesser scrutiny. It was his mother who lingered +before the picture, saying: + +"The face and figure of the girl are exquisite." + +Jon heard her uneasily. Did she understand? But he felt once more +that he was no match for her in self-control and subtlety. She +could, in some supersensitive way, of which he had not the secret, +feel the pulse of his thoughts; she knew by instinct what he hoped +and feared and wished. It made him terribly uncomfortable and +guilty, having, beyond most boys, a conscience. He wished she +would be frank with him; he almost hoped for an open struggle. But +none came, and steadily, silently, they travelled north. Thus did +he first learn how much better than men women play a waiting game. +In Paris they had again to pause for a day. Jon was grieved +because it lasted two, owing to certain matters in connection with +a dressmaker; as if his mother, who looked beautiful in anything, +had any need of dresses! The happiest moment of his travel was +that when he stepped on to the Folkestone boat. + +Standing by the bulwark rail, with her arm in his, she said: + +"I'm afraid you haven't enjoyed it much, Jon. But you've been very +sweet to me." + +Jon squeezed her arm. + +"Oh! yes, I've enjoyed it awfully--except for my head lately." + +And now that the end had come, he really had, feeling a sort of +glamour over the past weeks--a kind of painful pleasure, such as +he had tried to screw into those lines about the voice in the +night crying; a feeling such as he had known as a small boy +listening avidly to Chopin, yet wanting to cry. And he wondered +why it was that he couldn't say to her quite simply what she had +said to him: + +"You were very sweet to me." Odd--one never could be nice and +natural like that! He substituted the words: "I expect we shall be +sick." + +They were, and reached London somewhat attenuated, having been +away six weeks and two days, without a single allusion to the +subject which had hardly ever ceased to occupy their minds. + + + + + +II + +FATHERS AND DAUGHTERS + + +Deprived of his wife and son by the Spanish adventure, Jolyon +found the solitude at Robin Hill intolerable. A philosopher when +he has all that he wants is different from a philosopher when he +has not. Accustomed, however, to the idea, if not to the reality +of resignation, he would perhaps have faced it out but for his +daughter June. He was a "lame duck" now, and on her conscience. +Having achieved--momentarily--the rescue of an etcher in low +circumstances, which she happened to have in hand, she appeared at +Robin Hill a fortnight after Irene and Jon had gone. The little +lady was living now in a tiny house with a big studio at Chiswick. +A Forsyte of the best period, so far as the lack of responsibility +was concerned, she had overcome the difficulty of a reduced income +in a manner satisfactory to herself and her father. The rent of +the Gallery off Cork Street which he had bought for her, and her +increased income tax happening to balance, it had been quite +simple--she no longer paid him the rent. The Gallery might be +expected now at any time, after eighteen years of barren usufruct, +to pay its way, so that she was sure her father would not feel it. +Through this device she still had twelve hundred a year, and by +reducing what she ate, and, in place of two Belgians in a poor +way, employing one Austrian in a poorer, practically the same +surplus for the relief of genius. After three days at Robin Hill +she carried her father back with her to Town. In those three days +she had stumbled on the secret he had kept for two years, and had +instantly decided to cure him. She knew, in fact, the very man. He +had done wonders with Paul Post--that painter a little in advance +of Futurism; and she was impatient with her father because his +eyebrows would go up, and because he had heard of neither. Of +course, if he hadn't "faith" he would never get well! It was +absurd not to have faith in the man who had healed Paul Post so +that he had only just relapsed, from having overworked, or +overlived, himself again. The great thing about this healer was +that he relied on Nature. He had made a special study of the +symptoms of Nature--when his patient failed in any natural +symptom he supplied the poison which caused it--and there you +were! She was extremely hopeful. Her father had clearly not been +living a natural life at Robin Hill, and she intended to provide +the symptoms. He was--she felt--out of touch with the times, which +was not natural; his heart wanted stimulating. In the little +Chiswick house she and the Austrian--a grateful soul, so devoted +to June for rescuing her that she was in danger of decease from +overwork--stimulated Jolyon in all sorts of ways, preparing him +for his cure. But they could not keep his eyebrows down; as--for +example--when the Austrian woke him at eight o'clock just as he +was going to sleep or June took The Times away from him, because +it was unnatural to read "that stuff" when he ought to be taking +an interest in "life." He never failed, indeed, to be astonished +at her resource, especially in the evenings. For his benefit, as +she declared, though he suspected that she also got something out +of it, she assembled the Age so far as it was satellite to genius; +and with some solemnity it would move up and down the studio +before him in the Fox-trot, and that more mental form of dancing-- +the One-step--which so pulled against the music, that Jolyon's +eyebrows would be almost lost in his hair from wonder at the +strain it must impose on the dancers' will-power. Aware that, hung +on the line in the Water Colour Society, he was a back number to +those with any pretension to be called artists, he would sit in +the darkest corner he could find, and wonder about rhythm, on +which so long ago he had been raised. And when June brought some +girl or young man up to him, he would rise humbly to their level +so far as that was possible, and think: 'Dear me! This is very +dull for them!' Having his father's perennial sympathy with Youth, +he used to get very tired from entering into their points of view. +But it was all stimulating, and he never failed in admiration of +his daughter's indomitable spirit. Even genius itself attended +these gatherings now and then, with its nose on one side; and June +always introduced it to her father. This, she felt, was +exceptionally good for him, for genius was a natural symptom he +had never had--fond as she was of him. + +Certain as a man can be that she was his own daughter, he often +wondered whence she got herself--her red-gold hair, now greyed +into a special colour; her direct, spirited face, so different +from his own rather folded and subtilised countenance, her little +light figure, when he and most of the Forsytes were tall. And he +would dwell on the origin of species, and debate whether she might +be Danish or Celtic. Celtic, he thought, from her pugnacity, and +her taste in fillets and djibbahs. It was not too much to say that +he preferred her to the Age with which she was surrounded, +youthful though, for the greater part, it was. She took, however, +too much interest in his teeth, for he still had some of those +natural symptoms. Her dentist at once found "staphylococcus aureus +present in pure culture" (which might cause boils, of course) and +wanted to take out all the teeth he had and supply him with two +complete sets of unnatural symptoms. Jolyon's native tenacity was +roused, and in the studio that evening he developed his +objections. He had never had any boils, and his own teeth would +last his time. Of course--June admitted--they would last his time +if he didn't have them out! But if he had more teeth he would have +a better heart and his time would be longer. His recalcitrance-- +she said--was a symptom of his whole attitude; he was taking it +lying down. He ought to be fighting. When was he going to see the +man who had cured Paul Post? Jolyon was very sorry, but the fact +was he was not going to see him. June chafed. Pondridge--she +said--the healer, was such a fine man, and he had such difficulty +in making two ends meet and getting his theories recognised. It +was just such indifference and prejudice as her father manifested +which was keeping him back. It would be so splendid for both of +them! + +"I perceive," said Jolyon, "that you are trying to kill two birds +with one stone." + +"To cure, you mean!" cried June. + +"My dear, it's the same thing." + +June protested. It was unfair to say that without a trial. + +Jolyon thought he might not have the chance of saying it after. + +"Dad!" cried June, "you're hopeless." + +"That," said Jolyon, "is a fact, but I wish to remain hopeless as +long as possible. I shall let sleeping dogs lie, my child. They +are quiet at present." + +"That's not giving science a chance," cried June. "You've no idea +how devoted Pondridge is. He puts his science before everything." + +"Just," replied Jolyon, puffing the mild cigarette to which he was +reduced, "as Mr. Paul Post puts his art, eh? Art for Art's sake-- +Science for the sake of Science. I know those enthusiastic +egomaniac gentry. They vivisect you without blinking. I'm enough +of a Forsyte to give them the go-by, June." + +"Dad," said June, "if you only knew how old-fashioned that sounds! +Nobody can afford to be half-hearted nowadays." + +"I'm afraid," murmured Jolyon, with his smile, "that's the only +natural symptom with which Mr. Pondridge need not supply me. We +are born to be extreme or to be moderate, my dear; though if +you'll forgive my saying so, half the people nowadays who believe +they're extreme are really very moderate. I'm getting on as well +as I can expect, and I must leave it at that." + +June was silent, having experienced in her time the inexorable +character of her father's amiable obstinacy so far as his own +freedom of action was concerned. + +How he came to let her know why Irene had taken Jon to Spain +puzzled Jolyon, for he had little confidence in her discretion. +After she had brooded on the news, it brought a rather sharp +discussion, during which he perceived to the full the fundamental +opposition between her active temperament and his wife's +passivity. He even gathered that a little soreness still remained +from that generation-old struggle between them over the body of +Philip Bosinney, in which the passive had so signally triumphed +over the active principle. + +According to June, it was foolish and even cowardly to hide the +past from Jon. Sheer opportunism, she called it. + +"Which," Jolyon put in mildly, "is the working principle of real +life, my dear." + +"Oh!" cried June, "YOU don't really defend her for not telling +Jon, Dad. If it were left to you, you would." + +"I might, but simply because I know he must find out, which will +be worse than if we told him." + +"Then why DON'T you tell him? It's just sleeping dogs again." + +"My dear," said Jolyon, "I wouldn't for the world go against +Irene's instinct. He's her boy." + +"Yours too," cried June. + +"What is a man's instinct compared with a mother's?" + +"Well, I think it's very weak of you." + +"I dare say," said Jolyon, "I dare say." + +And that was all she got from him; but the matter rankled in her +brain. She could not bear sleeping dogs. And there stirred in her +a tortuous impulse to push the matter towards decision. Jon ought +to be told, so that either his feeling might be nipped in the bud, +or, flowering in spite of the past, come to fruition. And she +determined to see Fleur, and judge for herself. When June +determined on anything, delicacy became a somewhat minor +consideration. After all, she was Soames' cousin, and they were +both interested in pictures. She would go and tell him that he +ought to buy a Paul Post, or perhaps a piece of sculpture by Boris +Strumolowski, and of course she would say nothing to her father. +She went on the following Sunday, looking so determined that she +had some difficulty in getting a cab at Reading station. The river +country was lovely in those days of her own month, and June ached +at its loveliness. She who had passed through this life without +knowing what union was had a love of natural beauty which was +almost madness. And when she came to that choice spot where Soames +had pitched his tent, she dismissed her cab, because, business +over, she wanted to revel in the bright water and the woods. She +appeared at his front door, therefore, as a mere pedestrian, and +sent in her card. It was in June's character to know that when her +nerves were fluttering she was doing something worth while. If +one's nerves did not flutter, she was taking the line of least +resistance, and knew that nobleness was not obliging her. She was +conducted to a drawing-room, which, though not in her style, +showed every mark of fastidious elegance. Thinking: 'Too much +taste--too many knick-knacks,' she saw in an old lacquer-framed +mirror the figure of a girl coming in from the verandah. Clothed +in white, and holding some white roses in her hand, she had, +reflected in that silvery-grey pool of glass, a vision-like +appearance, as if a pretty ghost had come out of the green garden. + +"How do you do?" said June, turning round. "I'm a cousin of your +father's." + +"Oh, yes; I saw you in that confectioner's." + +"With my young stepbrother. Is your father in?" + +"He will be directly. He's only gone for a little walk." + +June slightly narrowed her blue eyes, and lifted her decided chin. + +"Your name's Fleur, isn't it? I've heard of you from Holly. What +do you think of Jon?" + +The girl lifted the roses in her hand, looked at them, and +answered calmly: + +"He's quite a nice boy." + +"Not a bit like Holly or me, is he?" + +"Not a bit." + +'She's cool,' thought June. + +And suddenly the girl said: "I wish you'd tell me why our families +don't get on?" + +Confronted with the question she had advised her father to answer, +June was silent; either because this girl was trying to get +something out of her, or simply because what one would do +theoretically is not always what one will do when it comes to the +point. + +"You know," said the girl, "the surest way to make people find out +the worst is to keep them ignorant. My father's told me it was a +quarrel about property. But I don't believe it; we've both got +heaps. They wouldn't have been so bourgeois as all that." + +June flushed. The word applied to her grandfather and father +offended her. + +"My grandfather," she said, "was very generous, and my father is, +too; neither of them was in the least bourgeois." + +"Well, what was it then?" repeated the girl. Conscious that this +young Forsyte meant having what she wanted, June at once +determined to prevent her, and to get something for herself +instead. + +"Why do you want to know?" + +The girl smelled at her roses. "I only want to know because they +won't tell me." + +"Well, it WAS about property, but there's more than one kind." + +"That makes it worse. Now I really MUST know." + +June's small and resolute face quivered. She was wearing a round +cap, and her hair had fluffed out under it. She looked quite young +at that moment, rejuvenated by encounter. + +"You know," she said, "I saw you drop your handkerchief. Is there +anything between you and Jon? Because, if so, you'd better drop +that too." + +The girl grew paler, but she smiled. + +"If there were, that isn't the way to make me." + +At the gallantry of that reply June held out her hand. + +"I like you; but I don't like your father; I never have. We may as +well be frank." + +"Did you come down to tell him that?" + +June laughed. "No; I came down to see YOU." + +"How delightful of you!" + +This girl could fence. + +"I'm two-and-a-half times your age," said June, "but I quite +sympathise. It's horrid not to have one's own way." + +The girl smiled again. "I really think you MIGHT tell me." + +How the child stuck to her point! + +"It's not my secret. But I'll see what I can do, because I think +both you and Jon OUGHT to be told. And now I'll say good-bye." + +"Won't you wait and see Father?" + +June shook her head. "How can I get over to the other side?" + +"I'll row you across." + +"Look!" said June impulsively, "next time you're in London, come +and see me. This is where I live. I generally have young people in +the evening. But I shouldn't tell your father that you're coming." + +The girl nodded. + +Watching her scull the skiff across, June thought: 'She's awfully +pretty and well made. I never thought Soames would have a daughter +as pretty as this. She and Jon would make a lovely couple.' + +The instinct to couple, starved within herself, was always at work +in June. She stood watching Fleur row back; the girl took her hand +off a scull to wave farewell; and June walked languidly on between +the meadows and the river, with an ache in her heart. Youth to +youth, like the dragon-flies chasing each other, and love like the +sun warming them through and through. Her youth! So long ago--when +Phil and she--! And since? Nothing--no one had been quite what +she had wanted. And so she had missed it all. But what a coil was +round those two young things, if they really were in love, as +Holly would have it--as her father, and Irene, and Soames himself +seemed to dread. What a coil, and what a barrier! And the itch for +the future, the contempt, as it were, for what was overpast, which +forms the active principle, moved in the heart of one who ever +believed that what one wanted was more important than what other +people did not want. From the bank, awhile, in the warm summer +stillness, she watched the water-lily plants and willow leaves, +the fishes rising; sniffed the scent of grass and meadow-sweet, +wondering how she could force everybody to be happy. Jon and +Fleur! Two little lame ducks--charming callow yellow little ducks! +A great pity! Surely something could be done! One must not take +such situations lying down. She walked on, and reached a station, +hot and cross. + +That evening, faithful to the impulse towards direct action, which +made many people avoid her, she said to her father: + +"Dad, I've been down to see young Fleur. I think she's very +attractive. It's no good hiding our heads under our wings, is it?" + +The startled Jolyon set down his barley water, and began crumbling +his bread. + +"It's what you appear to be doing," he said: "Do you realise whose +daughter she is?" + +"Can't the dead past bury its dead?" + +Jolyon rose. + +"Certain things can never be buried." + +"I disagree," said June. "It's that which stands in the way of all +happiness and progress. You don't understand the Age, Dad. It's +got no use for outgrown things. Why do you think it matters so +terribly that Jon should know about his mother? Who pays any +attention to that sort of thing now? The marriage laws are just as +they were when Soames and Irene couldn't get a divorce, and you +had to come in. We've moved, and they haven't. So nobody cares. +Marriage without a decent chance of relief is only a sort of +slave-owning; people oughtn't to own each other. Everybody sees +that now. If Irene broke such laws, what does it matter?" + +"It's not for me to disagree there," said Jolyon; "but that's all +quite beside the mark. This is a matter of human feeling." + +"Of course, it is," cried June, "the human feeling of those two +young things." + +"My dear," said Jolyon with gentle exasperation, "you're talking +nonsense." + +"I'm not. If they prove to be really fond of each other, why +should they be made unhappy because of the past?" + +"YOU haven't lived that past. I have--through the feelings of my +wife; through my own nerves and my imagination, as only one who is +devoted can." + +June, too, rose, and began to wander restlessly. + +"If," she said suddenly, "she were the daughter of Phil Bosinney, +I could understand you better. Irene loved him, she never loved +Soames." + +Jolyon uttered a deep sound--the sort of noise an Italian peasant +woman utters to her mule. His heart had begun beating furiously, +but he paid no attention to it, quite carried away by his +feelings. + +"That shows how little you understand. Neither I nor Jon, if I +know him, would mind a love-past. It's the brutality of a union +without love. This girl is the daughter of the man who once owned +Jon's mother as a negro-slave was owned. You can't lay that ghost; +don't try to, June! It's asking us to see Jon joined to the flesh +and blood of the man who possessed Jon's mother against her will. +It's no good mincing words; I want it clear once for all. And now +I mustn't talk any more, or I shall have to sit up with this all +night." And, putting his hand over his heart, Jolyon turned his +back on his daughter and stood looking at the river Thames. + +June, who by nature never saw a hornets' nest until she had put +her head into it, was seriously alarmed. She came and slipped her +arm through his. Not convinced that he was right, and she herself +wrong, because that was not natural to her, she was yet profoundly +impressed by the obvious fact that the subject was very bad for +him. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, and said nothing. + +After taking her elderly cousin across, Fleur did not land at +once, but pulled in among the reeds, into the sunshine. The +peaceful beauty of the afternoon seduced for a little one not much +given to the vague and poetic. In the field beyond the bank where +her skiff lay up, a machine drawn by a grey horse was turning an +early field of hay. She watched the grass cascading over and +behind the light wheels with fascination--it looked so green and +fresh. The click and swish blended with the rustle of the willows +and the poplars, and the cooing of a wood-pigeon, in a true river +song. Alongside, in the grey-green water, weeds like yellow snakes +were writhing and nosing with the current; pied cattle on the +farther side stood in the shade lazily swishing their tails. It +was an afternoon to dream. And she took out Jon's letters--not +flowery effusions, but haunted in their recital of things seen and +done by a longing very agreeable to her, and all ending "Your +devoted J." Fleur was not sentimental, her desires were ever +concrete and concentrated, but what poetry there was in the +daughter of Soames and Annette had certainly in those weeks of +waiting gathered round her memories of Jon. They all belonged to +grass and blossom, flowers and running water. She enjoyed him in +the scents absorbed by her crinkling nose. The stars could +persuade her that she was standing beside him in the centre of the +map of Spain; and of an early morning the dewy cobwebs, the hazy +sparkle and promise of the day down in the garden, were Jon +personified to her. + +Two white swans came majestically by, while she was reading his +letters, followed by their brood of six young swans in a line, +with just so much space between each tail and head, a flotilla of +grey destroyers. Fleur thrust her letters back, got out her +sculls, and pulled up to the landing-stage. Crossing the lawn, she +wondered whether she should tell her father of June's visit. If he +learned of it from the butler, he might think it odd if she did +not. It gave her, too, another chance to startle out of him the +reason of the feud. She went, therefore, up the road to meet him. + +Soames had gone to look at a patch of ground on which the Local +Authorities were proposing to erect a Sanatorium for people with +weak lungs. Faithful to his native individualism, he took no part +in local affairs, content to pay the rates which were always going +up. He could not, however, remain indifferent to this new and +dangerous scheme. The site was not half a mile from his own house. +He was quite of opinion that the country should stamp out +tuberculosis; but this was not the place. It should be done +farther away. He took, indeed, an attitude common to all true +Forsytes, that disability of any sort in other people was not his +affair, and the State should do its business without prejudicing +in any way the natural advantages which he had acquired or +inherited. Francie, the most free-spirited Forsyte of his +generation (except perhaps that fellow Jolyon) had once asked him +in her malicious way: "Did you ever see the name Forsyte in a +subscription list, Soames?" That was as it might be, but a +Sanatorium would depreciate the neighbourhood, and he should +certainly sign the petition which was being got up against it. +Returning with this decision fresh within him, he saw Fleur +coming. + +She was showing him more affection of late, and the quiet time +down here with her in this summer weather had been making him feel +quite young; Annette was always running up to Town for one thing +or another, so that he had Fleur to himself almost as much as he +could wish. To be sure, young Mont had formed a habit of appearing +on his motor-cycle almost every other day. Thank goodness, the +young fellow had shaved off his half-toothbrushes, and no longer +looked like a mountebank! With a girl friend of Fleur's who was +staying in the house, and a neighbouring youth or so, they made +two couples after dinner, in the hall, to the music of the +electric pianola which performed Fox-trots unassisted, with a +surprised shine on its expressive surface. Annette, even, now and +then passed gracefully up and down in the arms of one or other of +the young men. And Soames, coming to the drawing-room door, would +lift his nose a little sideways, and watch them, waiting to catch +a smile from Fleur; then move back to his chair by the drawing- +room hearth, to peruse The Times or some other collector's price- +list. To his ever-anxious eyes Fleur showed no sign of remembering +that caprice of hers. + +When she reached him on the dusty road, he slipped his hand within +her arm. + +"Who, do you think, has been to see you, Dad? She couldn't wait! +Guess!" + +"I never guess," said Soames uneasily. "Who?" + +"Your cousin, June Forsyte." + +Quite unconsciously Soames gripped her arm. "What did SHE want?" + +"I don't know. But it was rather breaking through the feud, wasn't +it?" + +"Feud? What feud?" + +"The one that exists in your imagination, dear." + +Soames dropped her arm. Was she mocking, or trying to draw him on? + +"I suppose she wanted me to buy a picture," he said at last. + +"I don't think so. Perhaps it was just family affection." + +"She's only a first cousin once removed," muttered Soames. + +"And the daughter of your enemy." + +"What d'you mean by that?" + +"I beg your pardon, dear; I thought he was." + +"Enemy!" repeated Soames. "It's ancient history. I don't know +where you get your notions." + +"From June Forsyte." + +It had come to her as an inspiration that if he thought she knew, +or were on the edge of knowledge, he would tell her. + +Soames was startled, but she had underrated his caution and +tenacity. + +"If you know," he said coldly, "why do you plague me?" + +Fleur saw that she had overreached herself. + +"I don't want to plague you, darling. As you say, why want to know +more? Why want to know anything of that 'small' mystery--Je m'en +fiche, as Profond says." + +"That chap!" said Soames profoundly. + +That chap, indeed, played a considerable, if invisible, part this +summer--for he had not turned up again. Ever since the Sunday when +Fleur had drawn attention to him prowling on the lawn, Soames had +thought of him a good deal, and always in connection with Annette, +for no reason, except that she was looking handsomer than for some +time past. His possessive instinct, subtler, less formal, more +elastic since the war, kept all misgiving underground. As one +looks on some American river, quiet and pleasant, knowing that an +alligator perhaps is lying in the mud with his snout just raised +and indistinguishable from a snag of wood--so Soames looked on the +river of his own existence, subconscious of Monsieur Profond, +refusing to see more than the suspicion of his snout. He had at +this epoch in his life practically all he wanted, and was as +nearly happy as his nature would permit. His senses were at rest; +his affections found all the vent they needed in his daughter; his +collection was well known, his money well invested; his health +excellent, save for a touch of liver now and again; he had not yet +begun to worry seriously about what would happen after death, +inclining to think that nothing would happen. He resembled one of +his own gilt-edged securities, and to knock the gilt off by seeing +anything he could avoid seeing, would be, he felt instinctively, +perverse and retrogressive. Those two crumpled rose-leaves, +Fleur's caprice and Monsieur Profond's snout, would level away if +he lay on them industriously. + +That evening Chance, which visits the lives of even the best- +invested Forsytes, put a clue into Fleur's hands. Her father came +down to dinner without a handkerchief, and had occasion to blow +his nose. + +"I'll get you one, dear," she had said, and run upstairs. In the +sachet where she sought for it--an old sachet of very faded silk-- +there were two compartments: one held handkerchiefs; the other was +buttoned, and contained something flat and hard. By some childish +impulse Fleur unbuttoned it. There was a frame and in it a +photograph of herself as a little girl. She gazed at it, +fascinated, as one is by one's own presentment. It slipped under +her fidgeting thumb, and she saw that another photograph was +behind. She pressed her own down further, and perceived a face, +which she seemed to know, of a young woman, very good-looking, in +a very old style of evening dress. Slipping her own photograph up +over it again, she took out a handkerchief and went down. Only on +the stairs did she identify that face. Surely--surely Jon's +mother! The conviction came as a shock. And she stood still in a +flurry of thought. Why, of course! Jon's father had married the +woman her father had wanted to marry, had cheated him out of her, +perhaps. Then, afraid of showing by her manner that she had +lighted on his secret, she refused to think further, and, shaking +out the silk handkerchief, entered the dining-room. + +"I chose the softest, Father." + +"H'm!" said Soames; "I only use those after a cold. Never mind!" + +That evening passed for Fleur in putting two and two together; +recalling the look on her father's face in the confectioner's +shop--a look strange, and coldly intimate, a queer look. He must +have loved that woman very much to have kept her photograph all +this time, in spite of having lost her. Unsparing and matter-of- +fact, her mind darted to his relations with her own mother. Had he +ever really loved HER? She thought not. Jon was the son of the +woman he had really loved. Surely, then, he ought not to mind his +daughter loving him; it only wanted getting used to. And a sigh of +sheer relief was caught in the folds of her nightgown slipping +over her head. + + + + + +III + +MEETINGS + + +Youth only recognises Age by fits and starts. Jon, for one, had +never really seen his father's age till he came back from Spain. +The face of the fourth Jolyon, worn by waiting, gave him quite a +shock--it looked so wan and old. His father's mask had been forced +awry by the emotion of the meeting, so that the boy suddenly +realised how much he must have felt their absence. He summoned to +his aid the thought: 'Well, I didn't want to go!' It was out of +date for Youth to defer to Age. But Jon was by no means typically +modern. His father had always been "so jolly" to him, and to feel +that one meant to begin again at once the conduct which his father +had suffered six weeks' loneliness to cure, was not agreeable. + +At the question, "Well, old man, how did the great Goya strike +you?" his conscience pricked him badly. The great Goya only +existed because he had created a face which resembled Fleur's. + +On the night of their return he went to bed full of compunction; +but awoke full of anticipation. It was only the fifth of July, and +no meeting was fixed with Fleur until the ninth. He was to have +three days at home before going back to farm. Somehow he must +contrive to see her! + +In the lives of men an inexorable rhythm, caused by the need for +trousers, not even the fondest parents can deny. On the second +day, therefore, Jon went to Town, and having satisfied his +conscience by ordering what was indispensable in Conduit Street, +turned his face towards Piccadilly. Stratton Street, where her +Club was, adjoined Devonshire House. It would be the merest chance +that she should be at her Club. But he dawdled down Bond Street +with a beating heart, noticing the superiority of all other young +men to himself. They wore their clothes with such an air; they had +assurance; they were OLD. He was suddenly overwhelmed by the +conviction that Fleur must have forgotten him. Absorbed in his own +feeling for her all these weeks, he had mislaid that possibility. +The corners of his mouth drooped, his hands felt clammy. Fleur +with the pick of youth at the beck of her smile--Fleur +incomparable! It was an evil moment. Jon, however, had a great +idea that one must be able to face anything. And he braced himself +with that dour reflection in front of a bric-a-brac shop. At this +high-water mark of what was once the London season, there was +nothing to mark it out from any other except a grey top hat or +two, and the sun. Jon moved on, and turning the corner into +Piccadilly, ran into Val Dartie moving towards the Iseeum Club, to +which he had just been elected. + +"Hallo! young man! Where are you off to?" + +Jon flushed. "I've just been to my tailor's." + +Val looked him up and down. "That's good! I'm going in here to +order some cigarettes, then come and have some lunch." + +Jon thanked him. He might get news of HER from Val. The condition +of England, that nightmare of its Press and Public men, was seen +in different perspective within the tobacconist's which they now +entered. + +"Yes, sir; precisely the cigarette I used to supply your father +with. Bless me! Mr. Montague Dartie was a customer here from--let +me see--the year Melton won the Derby. One of my very best +customers he was." And a faint smile illumined the tobacconist's +face. "Many's the tip he's given me, to be sure! I suppose he took +a couple of hundred of these every week, year in, year out, and +never changed his cigarette. Very affable gentleman, brought me a +lot of custom. I was sorry he met with that accident. One misses +an old customer like him." + +Val smiled. His father's decease had closed an account which had +been running longer, probably, than any other; and in a ring of +smoke puffed out from that time-honoured cigarette he seemed to +see again his father's face, dark, good-looking, moustachioed, a +little puffy, in the only halo it had earned. His father had his +fame here, anyway--a man who smoked two hundred cigarettes a +week, who could give tips, and run accounts for ever! To his +tobacconist a hero! Even that was some distinction to inherit! + +"I pay cash," he said; "how much?" + +"To HIS son, sir, and cash--ten and six. I shall never forget Mr. +Montague Dartie. I've known him stand talkin' to me half an hour. +We don't get many like him now, with everybody in such a hurry. +The war was bad for manners, sir--it was bad for manners. You were +in it, I see." + +"No," said Val, tapping his knee, "I got this in the war before. +Saved my life, I expect. Do you want any cigarettes, Jon?" + +Rather ashamed, Jon murmured: "I don't smoke, you know," and saw +the tobacconist's lips twisted, as if uncertain whether to say +"Good God!" or "Now's your chance, sir!" + +"That's right," said Val; "keep off it while you can. You'll want +it when you take a knock. This is really the same tobacco, then?" + +"Identical, sir; a little dearer, that's all. Wonderful staying +power--the British Empire, I always say." + +"Send me down a hundred a week to this address, and invoice it +monthly. Come on, Jon." + +Jon entered the Iseeum with curiosity. Except to lunch now and +then at the Hotch-potch with his father, he had never been in a +London Club. The Iseeum, comfortable and unpretentious, did not +move, could not, so long as George Forsyte sat on its Committee, +where his culinary acumen was almost the controlling force. The +Club had made a stand against the newly rich, and it had taken all +George Forsyte's prestige, and praise of him as a "good +sportsman," to bring in Prosper Profond. + +The two were lunching together when the half-brothers-in-law +entered the dining-room, and attracted by George's forefinger, sat +down at their table, Val with his shrewd eyes and charming smile, +Jon with solemn lips and an attractive shyness in his glance. +There was an air of privilege around that corner table, as though +past masters were eating there. Jon was fascinated by the hypnotic +atmosphere. The waiter, lean in the chaps, pervaded with such +freemasonical deference. He seemed to hang on George Forsyte's +lips, to watch the gloat in his eye with a kind of sympathy, to +follow the movements of the heavy club-marked silver fondly. His +liveried arm and confidential voice alarmed Jon, they came so +secretly over one's shoulder. + +Except for George's: "Your grandfather tipped me once; he was a +deuced good judge of a cigar!" neither he nor the other past +master took any notice of him, and he was grateful for this. The +talk was all about the breeding, points, and prices of horses, and +he listened to it vaguely at first, wondering how it was possible +to retain so much knowledge in a head. He could not take his eyes +off the dark past master--what he said was so deliberate and +discouraging--such heavy, queer, smiled-out words. Jon was +thinking of butterflies, when he heard him say: + +"I want to see Mr. Soames Forsyde take an interest in 'orses." + +"Old Soames! He's too dry a file!" + +With all his might Jon tried not to grow red, while the dark past +master went on. + +"His daughter's an attractive small girl. Mr. Soames Forsyde is a +bit old-fashioned. I want to see him have a pleasure some day." + +George Forsyte grinned. "Don't you worry; he's not so miserable as +he looks. He'll never show he's enjoying anything--they might try +and take it from him. Old Soames! Once bit, twice shy!" + +"Well, Jon," said Val hastily, "if you've finished, we'll go and +have coffee." + +"Who were those?" Jon asked on the stairs: "I didn't quite--" + +"Old George Forsyte is a first cousin of your father's, and of my +uncle Soames. He's always been here. The other chap, Profond, is a +queer fish. I think he's hanging round Soames' wife, if you ask +me!" + +Jon looked at him, startled. "But that's awful," he said: "I mean +--for Fleur." + +"Don't suppose Fleur cares very much; she's very up-to-date." + +"Her mother!" + +"You're very green, Jon." + +Jon grew red. "Mothers," he stammered angrily, "are different." + +"You're right," said Val suddenly; "but things aren't what they +were when I was your age. There's a 'Tomorrow we die' feeling. +That's what old George meant about my uncle Soames. HE doesn't +mean to die tomorrow." + +Jon said quickly: "What's the matter between him and my father?" + +"Stable secret, Jon. Take my advice, and bottle up. You'll do no +good by knowing. Have a liqueur?" + +Jon shook his head. + +"I hate the way people keep things from one," he muttered, "and +then sneer at one for being green." + +"Well, you can ask Holly. If SHE won't tell you, you'll believe +it's for your own good, I suppose." + +Jon got up. "I must go now; thanks awfully for the lunch." + +Val smiled up at him, half-sorry and yet amused. The boy looked so +upset. + +"All right! See you on Friday." + +"I don't know," murmured Jon. + +And he did not. This conspiracy of silence made him desperate. It +was humiliating to be treated like a child. He retraced his moody +steps to Stratton Street. But he would go to her Club now, and +find out the worst. To his inquiry the reply was that Miss Forsyte +was not in the Club. She might be in perhaps later. She was often +in on Monday--they could not say. Jon said he would call again, +and, crossing into the Green Park, flung himself down under a +tree. The sun was bright, and a breeze fluttered the leaves of the +young lime-tree beneath which he lay; but his heart ached. Such +darkness seemed gathered round his happiness. He heard Big Ben +chime "Three" above the traffic. The sound moved something in him, +and taking out a piece of paper, he began to scribble on it with a +pencil. He had jotted a stanza, and was searching the grass for +another verse, when something hard touched his shoulder--a green +parasol. There above him stood Fleur! + +"They told me you'd been, and were coming back. So I thought you +might be out here; and you are--it's rather wonderful!" + +"Oh, Fleur! I thought you'd have forgotten me." + +"When I told you that I shouldn't!" + +Jon seized her arm. + +"It's too much luck! Let's get away from this side." + +He almost dragged her on through that too thoughtfully regulated +Park, to find some cover where they could sit and hold each +other's hands. + +"Hasn't anybody cut in?" he said, gazing round at her lashes, in +suspense above her cheeks. + +"There IS a young idiot, but he doesn't count." + +Jon felt a twitch of compassion for the--young idiot. + +"You know I've had sunstroke, I didn't tell you." + +"Really! Was it interesting?" + +"No. Mother was an angel. Has anything happened to YOU?" + +"Nothing. Except that I think I've found out what's wrong between +our families, Jon." + +His heart began beating very fast. + +"I believe my father wanted to marry your mother, and your father +got her instead." + +"Oh!" + +"I came on a photo of her; it was in a frame behind a photo of me. +Of course, if he was very fond of her, that would have made him +pretty mad, wouldn't it?" + +Jon thought for a minute. "Not if she loved my father best." + +"But suppose they were engaged?" + +"If we were engaged, and you found you loved somebody better, I +might go cracked, but I shouldn't grudge it you." + +"I should. You mustn't ever do that with me, Jon." + +"My God! Not much!" + +"I don't believe that he's ever really cared for my mother." + +Jon was silent. Val's words, the two past masters in the Club! + +"You see, we don't know," went on Fleur; "it may have been a great +shock. She may have behaved badly to him. People do." + +"My mother wouldn't." + +Fleur shrugged her shoulders. "I don't think we know much about +our fathers and mothers. We just see them in the light of the way +they treat US; but they've treated other people, you know, before +we were born--plenty, I expect. You see, they're both old. Look at +your father, with three separate families!" + +"Isn't there any place," cried Jon, "in all this beastly London +where we can be alone?" + +"Only a taxi." + +"Let's get one, then." + +When they were installed, Fleur asked suddenly: "Are you going +back to Robin Hill? I should like to see where you live, Jon. I'm +staying with my aunt for the night, but I could get back in time +for dinner. I wouldn't come to the house, of course." + +Jon gazed at her enraptured. + +"Splendid! I can show it you from the copse, we shan't meet +anybody. There's a train at four." + +The god of property and his Forsytes great and small, leisured, +official, commercial, or professional, unlike the working classes, +still worked their seven hours a day, so that those two of the +fourth generation travelled down to Robin Hill in an empty first- +class carriage, dusty and sun-warmed, of that too early train. +They travelled in blissful silence, holding each other's hands. + +At the station they saw no one except porters, and a villager or +two unknown to Jon, and walked out up the lane, which smelled of +dust and honeysuckle. + +For Jon--sure of her now, and without separation before him--it +was a miraculous dawdle, more wonderful than those on the Downs, +or along the river Thames. It was love-in-a-mist--one of those +illumined pages of Life, where every word and smile, and every +light touch they gave each other were as little gold and red and +blue butterflies and flowers and birds scrolled in among the text-- +a happy communing, without afterthought, which lasted twenty- +seven minutes. They reached the coppice at the milking-hour. Jon +would not take her as far as the farmyard; only to where she could +see the field leading up to the gardens, and the house beyond. +They turned in among the larches, and suddenly, at the winding of +the path, came on Irene, sitting on an old log seat. + +There are various kinds of shocks: to the vertebrae; to the +nerves; to moral sensibility; and, more potent and permanent, to +personal dignity. This last was the shock Jon received, coming +thus on his mother. He became suddenly conscious that he was doing +an indelicate thing. To have brought Fleur down openly--yes! But +to sneak her in like this! Consumed with shame, he put on a front +as brazen as his nature would permit. + +Fleur was smiling a little defiantly; his mother's startled face +was changing quickly to the impersonal and gracious. It was she +who uttered the first words: + +"I'm very glad to see you. It was nice of Jon to think of bringing +you down to us." + +"We weren't coming to the house," Jon blurted out. "I just wanted +Fleur to see where I lived." + +His mother said quietly: "Won't you come up and have tea?" + +Feeling that he had but aggravated his breach of breeding, he +heard Fleur answer: "Thanks very much; I have to get back to +dinner. I met Jon by accident, and we thought it would be rather +jolly just to see his home." + +How self-possessed she was! + +"Of course; but you MUST have tea. We'll send you down to the +station. My husband will enjoy seeing you." + +The expression of his mother's eyes, resting on him for a moment, +cast Jon down level with the ground--a true worm. Then she led on, +and Fleur followed her. He felt like a child, trailing after those +two, who were talking so easily about Spain and Wansdon, and the +house up there beyond the trees and the grassy slope. He watched +the fencing of their eyes, taking each other in--the two beings he +loved most in the world. + +He could see his father sitting under the oak-tree; and suffered +in advance all the loss of caste he must go through in the eyes of +that tranquil figure, with his knees crossed, thin, old, and +elegant; already he could feel the faint irony which would come +into his voice and smile. + +"This is Fleur Forsyte, Jolyon; Jon brought her down to see the +house. Let's have tea at once--she has to catch a train. Jon, tell +them, dear, and telephone to the Dragon for a car." + +To leave her alone with them was strange, and yet, as no doubt his +mother had foreseen, the least of evils at the moment; so he ran +up into the house. Now he would not see Fleur alone again--not for +a minute, and they had arranged no further meeting! When he +returned under cover of the maids and teapots, there was not a +trace of awkwardness beneath the tree; it was all within himself, +but not the less for that. They were talking of the Gallery off +Cork Street. + +"We back-numbers," his father was saying, "are awfully anxious to +find out why we can't appreciate the new stuff; you and Jon must +tell us." + +"It's supposed to be satiric, isn't it?" said Fleur. + +He saw his father's smile. + +"Satiric? Oh! I think it's more than that. What do you say, Jon?" + +"I don't know at all," stammered Jon. His father's face had a +sudden grimness. + +"The young are tired of us, our gods and our ideals. Off with +their heads, they say--smash their idols! And let's get back to-- +nothing! And, by Jove, they've done it! Jon's a poet. He'll be +going in, too, and stamping on what's left of us. Property, +beauty, sentiment--all smoke. We mustn't own anything nowadays, +not even our feelings. They stand in the way of--Nothing." + +Jon listened, bewildered, almost outraged by his father's words, +behind which he felt a meaning that he could not reach. He didn't +want to stamp on anything! + +"Nothing's the god of to-day," continued Jolyon; "we're back where +the Russians were sixty years ago, when they started Nihilism." + +"No, Dad," cried Jon suddenly; "we only want to LIVE, and we don't +know how, because of the Past--that's all!" + +"By George!" said Jolyon, "that's profound, Jon. Is it your own? +The Past! Old ownerships, old passions, and their aftermath. Let's +have cigarettes." + +Conscious that his mother had lifted her hand to her lips, +quickly, as if to hush something, Jon handed the cigarettes. He +lighted his father's and Fleur's, then one for himself. Had he +taken the knock that Val had spoken of? The smoke was blue when he +had not puffed, grey when he had; he liked the sensation in his +nose, and the sense of equality it gave him. He was glad no one +said: "So you've begun!" He felt less young. + +Fleur looked at her watch, and rose. His mother went with her into +the house. Jon stayed with his father, puffing at the cigarette. + +"See her into the car, old man," said Jolyon; "and when she's +gone, ask your mother to come back to me." + +Jon went. He waited in the hall. He saw her into the car. There +was no chance for any word; hardly for a pressure of the hand. He +waited all that evening for something to be said to him. Nothing +was said. Nothing might have happened. He went up to bed; and in +the mirror on his dressing-table met himself. He did not speak, +nor did the image; but both looked as if they thought the more. + + + + + +IV + +IN GREEN STREET + + +Uncertain, whether the impression that Prosper Profond was +dangerous should be traced to his attempt to give Val the Mayfly +filly; to the remark of Fleur's: "Isn't he a great cat? Prowling!" +to his preposterous inquiry of Jack Cardigan: "What's the use of +keepin' fit?" or, more simply, to the fact that he was a +foreigner, or alien as it was now called. Certain that Annette was +looking particularly handsome, and that Soames had sold him a +Gauguin and then torn up the cheque, so that Monsieur Profond +himself had said: "I didn't get that small picture I bought from +Mr. Forsyde." + +However suspiciously regarded, he still frequented Winifred's +evergreen little house in Green Street, with a good-natured +obtuseness which no one mistook for naivete; a word hardly +applicable to Monsieur Prosper Profond. Winifred still found him +"amusing," and would write him little notes saying: "Come and have +a 'jolly' with us'--it was breath of life to her to keep up with +the phrases of the day. + +The mystery, with which all felt him to be surrounded, was due to +his having done, seen, heard, and known everything, and found +nothing in it--which was unnatural. The English type of +disillusionment was familiar enough to Winifred, who had always +moved in fashionable circles. It gave a certain cachet or +distinction, so that one got something out of it. But to see +nothing in anything, not as a pose, but because there WAS nothing +in anything, was not English; and that which was not English one +could not help secretly feeling dangerous, if not precisely bad +form. It was like having the mood which the war had left, seated-- +dark, heavy, smiling, indifferent--in your Empire chair; it was +like listening to that mood talking through thick pink lips above +a little diabolic beard. It was, as Jack Cardigan expressed it-- +for the English character at large--"a bit too thick"--for if +nothing was really worth getting excited about, there were always +games, and one could make it so! Even Winifred, ever a Forsyte at +heart, felt that there was nothing to be had out of a mood of +disillusionment; it really ought not to be there. Monsieur +Profond, in fact, made the mood too plain, in a country which +decently veiled such realities. + +When Fleur, after her hurried return from Robin Hill, came down to +dinner that evening, the mood was standing at the window of +Winifred's little drawing-room, looking out into Green Street, +with an air of seeing nothing in it. And Fleur gazed promptly into +the fireplace with an air of seeing a fire which was not there. + +Monsieur Profond came from the window. He was in full fig, with a +white waistcoat and a white flower in his buttonhole. + +"Well, Miss Forsyde," he said, "I'm awful pleased to see you. Mr. +Forsyde well? I was sayin' to-day I want to see him have some +pleasure. He worries." + +"You think so?" said Fleur shortly. + +"Worries," repeated Monsieur Profond, burring the r's. + +Fleur spun round. "Shall I tell you," she said, "what would give +him pleasure?" But the words: "To hear that you had cleared out" +died at the expression on his face. All his fine white teeth were +showing. + +"I was hearin' at the Club to-day, about his old trouble." + +"What do you mean?" + +Monsieur Profond moved his sleek head as if to minimise his +statement. + +"Before you were born," he said; "that small business." + +Though conscious that he had cleverly diverted her from his own +share in her father's worry, Fleur could not withstand a rush of +nervous curiosity. "What did you hear?" + +"Why!" murmured Monsieur Profond, "you know all that." + +"I expect I do. But I should like to know that you haven't heard +it all wrong." + +"His first wife," murmured Monsieur Profond. + +Choking back the words: "He was never married before"; she said: +"Well, what about her?" + +"Mr. George Forsyde was tellin' me about your father's first wife +marryin' his cousin Jolyon afterwards. It was a small bit +unpleasant, I should think. I saw their boy--nice boy!" + +Fleur looked up. Monsieur Profond was swimming, heavily +diabolical, before her. That--the reason! With the most heroic +effort of her life so far, she managed to arrest that swimming +figure. She could not tell whether he had noticed. And just then +Winifred came in. + +"Oh! here you both are already! Imogen and I have had the most +amusing afternoon at the Babies' bazaar." + +"What babies?" said Fleur mechanically. + +"The 'Save the Babies.' I got such a bargain, my dear. A piece of +old Armenian work--from before the flood. I want your opinion on +it, Prosper." + +"Auntie," whispered Fleur suddenly. + +At the tone in the girl's voice Winifred closed in on her. + +"What's the matter? Aren't you well?" + +Monsieur Profond had withdrawn into the window, where he was +practically out of hearing. + +"Auntie, he told me that father has been married before. Is it +true that he divorced her, and she married Jon Forsyte's father?" + +Never in all the life of the mother of four little Darties had +Winifred felt more seriously embarrassed. Her niece's face was so +pale, her eyes so dark, her voice so whispery and strained. + +"Your Father didn't wish you to hear," she said, with all the +aplomb she could muster. "These things will happen. I've often +told him he ought to let you know." + +"Oh!" said Fleur, and that was all, but it made Winifred pat her +shoulder--a firm little shoulder, nice and white! She never could +help an appraising eye and touch in the matter of her niece, who +would have to be married, of course--though not to that boy Jon. + +"We've forgotten all about it years and years ago," she said +comfortably. "Come and have dinner!" + +"No, Auntie. I don't feel very well. May I go upstairs?" + +"My dear!" murmured Winifred, concerned; "you're not taking this +to heart? Why, you haven't properly come out yet! That boy's a +child!" + +"What boy? I've only got a headache. But I can't stand that man +to-night." + +"Well, well," said Winifred; "go and lie down. I'll send you some +bromide, and I shall talk to Prosper Profond. What business had he +to gossip? Though I must say I think it's much better you should +know." + +Fleur smiled. "Yes," she said, and slipped from the room. + +She went up with her head whirling, a dry sensation in her throat, +a fluttered, frightened feeling in her breast. Never in her life +as yet had she suffered from even momentary fear that she would +not get what she had set her heart on. The sensations of the +afternoon had been full, and poignant, and this gruesome discovery +coming on the top of them had really made her head ache. No wonder +her father had hidden that photograph so secretly behind her own-- +ashamed of having kept it! But could he hate Jon's mother and yet +keep her photograph? She pressed her hands over her forehead, +trying to see things clearly. Had they told Jon--had her visit to +Robin Hill forced them to tell him? Everything now turned on that! +She knew, they all knew, except--perhaps--Jon! + +She walked up and down, biting her lip and thinking desperately +hard. Jon loved his mother. If they had told him, what would he +do? She could not tell. But if they had not told him, should she +not--could she not get him for herself--get married to him, before +he knew? She searched her memories of Robin Hill. His mother's +face so passive--with its dark eyes and as if powdered hair, its +reserve, its smile--baffled her; and his father's--kindly, +sunken, ironic. Instinctively she felt they would shrink from +telling Jon, even now, shrink from hurting him--for of course it +would hurt him awfully to know! + +Her aunt must be made not to tell her father that she knew. So +long as neither she herself nor Jon were supposed to know, there +was still a chance--freedom to cover one's tracks, and get what +her heart was set on. But she was almost overwhelmed by her +isolation. Every one's hand was against her--every one's! It was +as Jon had said--he and she just wanted to live and the past was +in their way, a past they hadn't shared in, and didn't understand! +Oh! What a shame! And suddenly she thought of June. Would she help +them? For somehow June had left on her the impression that she +would be sympathetic with their love, impatient of obstacle. Then, +instinctively, she thought: 'I won't give anything away, though, +even to her. I daren't! I mean to have Jon; in spite of them all.' + +Soup was brought up to her, and one of Winifred's pet headache +cachets. She swallowed both. Then Winifred herself appeared. Fleur +opened her campaign with the words: + +"You know, Auntie, I do wish people wouldn't think I'm in love +with that boy. Why, I've hardly seen him!" + +Winifred, though experienced, was not 'fine'. She accepted the +remark with considerable relief. Of course, it was not pleasant +for the girl to hear of the family scandal, and she set herself to +minimise the matter, a task for which she was eminently qualified, +raised fashionably under a comfortable mother and a father whose +nerves might not be shaken, and for many years the wife of +Montague Dartie. Her description was a masterpiece of +understatement. Fleur's father's first wife had been very foolish. +There had been a young man who had got run over, and she had left +Fleur's father. Then, years after, when it might all have come +right again, she had taken up with their cousin Jolyon; and, of +course, her father had been obliged to have a divorce. Nobody +remembered anything of it now, except just the family. And, +perhaps, it had all turned out for the best; her father had Fleur; +and Jolyon and Irene had been quite happy, they said, and their +boy was a nice boy. "Val having Holly, too, is a sort of plaster, +don't you know?" With these soothing words, Winifred patted her +niece's shoulder, thought: "She's a nice, plump little thing!" and +went back to Prosper Profond, who, in spite of his indiscretion, +was very "amusing" this evening. + +For some minutes after her aunt had gone Fleur remained under +influence of bromide material and spiritual. But then reality came +back. Her aunt had left out all that mattered--all the feeling, +the hate, the love, the unforgivingness of passionate hearts. She, +who knew so little of life, and had touched only the fringe of +love, was yet aware by instinct that words have as little relation +to fact and feeling as coin to the bread it buys. 'Poor Father!' +she thought. 'Poor me! Poor Jon! But I don't care, I mean to have +him!' From the window of her darkened room she saw "that man" +issue from the door below and "prowl" away. If he and her mother-- +how would that affect her chance? Surely it must make her father +cling to her more closely, so that he would consent in the end to +anything she wanted, or become reconciled the sooner to what she +did without his knowledge. + +She took some earth from the flower-box in the window, and with +all her might flung it after that disappearing figure. It fell +short, but the action did her good. + +And a little puff of air came up from Green Street, smelling of +petrol, not sweet. + + + + + +V + +PURELY FORSYTE AFFAIRS + + +Soames, coming up to the City, with the intention of calling in at +Green Street at the end of his day and taking Fleur back home with +him, suffered from rumination. Sleeping partner that he was, he +seldom visited the City now, but he still had a room of his own at +Cuthcott Kingson & Forsyte's, and one special clerk and a half +assigned to the management of purely Forsyte affairs. They were +somewhat in flux just now--an auspicious moment for the disposal +of house property. And Soames was unloading the estates of his +father and uncle Roger, and to some extent of his uncle Nicholas. +His shrewd and matter-of-course probity in all money concerns had +made him something of an autocrat in connection with these trusts. +If Soames thought this or thought that, one had better save +oneself the bother of thinking too. He guaranteed, as it were, +irresponsibility to numerous Forsytes of the third and fourth +generations. His fellow trustees, such as his cousins Roger or +Nicholas, his cousins-in-law Tweetyman and Spender, or his sister +Cicely's husband all trusted him; he signed first, and where he +signed first they signed after, and nobody was a penny the worse. +Just now they were all a good many pennies the better, and Soames +was beginning to see the close of certain trusts, except for +distribution of the income from securities as gilt-edged as was +compatible with the period. + +Passing the more feverish parts of the City towards the most +perfect backwater in London, he ruminated. Money was +extraordinarily tight; and morality extraordinarily loose! The War +had done it. Banks were not lending; people breaking contracts all +over the place. There was a feeling in the air and a look on faces +that he did not like. The country seemed in for a spell of +gambling and bankruptcies. There was satisfaction in the thought +that neither he nor his trusts had an investment which could be +affected by anything less maniacal than national repudiation or a +levy on capital. If Soames had faith, it was in what he called +"English common sense"--or the power to have things, if not one +way then another. He might--like his father James before him--say +he didn't know what things were coming to, but he never in his +heart believed they were. If it rested with him, they wouldn't-- +and, after all, he was only an Englishman like any other, so +quietly tenacious of what he had that he knew he would never +really part with it without something more or less equivalent in +exchange. Take his own case, for example! He was well off. Did +that do anybody harm? He did not eat ten meals a day; he ate no +more than, perhaps not so much as, a poor man. He spent no money +on vice; breathed no more air, used no more water to speak of than +the mechanic or the porter. He certainly had pretty things about +him, but they had given employment in the making, and somebody +must use them. He bought pictures, but Art must be encouraged. He +was, in fact, an accidental channel through which money flowed, +employing labour. What was there objectionable in that? In his +charge money was in quicker and more useful flux than it would be +in charge of the State and a lot of slow-fly money-sucking +officials. And as to what he saved each year--it was just as much +in flux as what he didn't save, going into Water Board or Council +Stocks, or something sound and useful. The State paid him no +salary for being trustee of his own or other people's money--HE +DID ALL THAT FOR NOTHING. Therein lay the whole case against +nationalisation--owners of private property were unpaid, and yet +had every incentive to quicken up the flux. Under nationalisation +--just the opposite! In a country smarting from officialism he felt +that he had a strong case. + +It particularly annoyed him, entering that backwater of perfect +peace, to think that a lot of unscrupulous Trusts and Combinations +had been cornering the market in goods of all kinds, and keeping +prices at an artificial height. Such abusers of the +individualistic system were the ruffians who caused all the +trouble, and it was some satisfaction to see them getting into a +stew at last lest the whole thing might come down with a run-and +land in the soup. + +The offices of Cuthcott Kingson & Forsyte occupied the ground and +first floors of a house on the right-hand side; and, ascending to +his room, Soames thought: 'Time we had a coat of paint.' + +His old clerk Gradman was seated, where he always was, at a huge +bureau with countless pigeonholes. Half-the-clerk stood beside +him, with a broker's note recording investment of the proceeds +from sale of the Bryanston Square house, in Roger Forsyte's +estate. Soames took it, and said: + +"Vancouver City Stock. H'm! It's down to-day!" + +With a sort of grating ingratiation old Gradman answered him: + +"Ye-es; but everything's down, Mr. Soames." And half-the-clerk +withdrew. + +Soames skewered the document onto a number of other papers and +hung up his hat. + +"I want to look at my Will and Marriage Settlement, Gradman." + +Old Gradman, moving to the limit of his swivel chair, drew out two +drafts from the bottom left-hand drawer. Recovering his body, he +raised his grizzle-haired face, very red from stooping. + +"Copies, sir." + +Soames took them. It struck him suddenly how like Gradman was to +the stout brindled yard dog they had been wont to keep on his +chain at 'The Shelter,' till one day Fleur had come and insisted +it should be let loose, so that it had at once bitten the cook and +been destroyed. If you let Gradman off his chair, would he bite +the cook? + +Checking this frivolous fancy, Soames unfolded his Marriage +Settlement. He had not looked at it for over eighteen years, not +since he remade his Will when his father died and Fleur was born. +He wanted to see whether the words "during coverture" were in. +Yes, they were--odd expression, when you thought of it, and +derived perhaps from horse-breeding! Interest on fifteen thousand +pounds (which he paid her without deducting income tax) so long as +she remained his wife, and afterwards during widowhood "dum +casta"--old-fashioned and rather pointed words, put in to insure +the conduct of Fleur's mother. His Will made it up to an annuity +of a thousand under the same conditions. All right! He returned +the copies to Gradman, who took them without looking up, swung the +chair, restored the papers to their drawer, and went on casting +up. + +"Gradman! I don't like the condition of the country; there are a +lot of people about without any common sense. I want to find a way +by which I can safeguard Miss Fleur against anything which might +arise." + +Gradman wrote the figure "2" on his blotting-paper. + +"Ye-es," he said; "there's a nahsty spirit." + +"The ordinary restraint against anticipation doesn't meet the +case." + +"Nao," said Gradman. + +"Suppose those Labour fellows come in, or worse! It's these people +with fixed ideas who are the danger. Look at Ireland!" + +"Ah!" said Gradman. + +"Suppose I were to make a settlement on her at once with myself as +beneficiary for life, they couldn't take anything but the interest +from me, unless of course they alter the law." + +Gradman moved his head and smiled. + +"Aoh!" he said, "they wouldn't do tha-at!" + +"I don't know," muttered Soames; "I don't trust them." + +"It'll take two years, sir, to be valid against death duties." + +Soames sniffed. Two years! He was only sixty-five! + +"That's not the point. Draw a form of settlement that passes all +my property to Miss Fleur's children in equal shares, with +antecedent life-interests first to myself and then to her without +power of anticipation, and add a clause that in the event of +anything happening to divert her life-interest, that interest +passes to the trustees, to apply for her benefit, in their +absolute discretion." + +Gradman grated: "Rather extreme at your age, sir; you lose +control." + +"That's my business," said Soames sharply. + +Gradman wrote on a piece of paper. "Life-interest--anticipation-- +divert interest--absolute discretion..." and said: + +"What trustees? There's young Mr. Kingson, he's a nice steady +young fellow." + +"Yes, he might do for one. I must have three. There isn't a +Forsyte now who appeals to me." + +"Not young Mr. Nicholas? He's at the Bar. We've given 'im briefs." + +"He'll never set the Thames on fire," said Soames. + +A smile oozed out on Gradman's face, greasy with countless mutton- +chops, the smile of a man who sits all day. + +"You can't expect it, at his age, Mr. Soames." + +"Why? What is he? Forty?" + +"Ye-es, quite a young fellow." + +"Well, put him in; but I want somebody who'll take a personal +interest. There's no one that I can see." + +"What about Mr. Valerius, now he's come home?" + +"Val Dartie? With that father?" + +"We-ell," murmured Gradman, "he's been dead seven years--the +Statute runs against him." + +"No," said Soames. "I don't like the connection." + +He rose. Gradman said suddenly: + +"If they were makin' a levy on capital, they could come on the +trustees, sir. So there you'd be just the same. I'd think it over, +if I were you." + +"That's true," said Soames, "I will. What have you done about that +dilapidation notice in Vere Street?" + +"I 'aven't served it yet. The party's very old. She won't want to +go out at her age." + +"I don't know. This spirit of unrest touches every one." + +"Still, I'm lookin' at things broadly, sir. She's eighty-one." + +"Better serve it," said Soames, "and see what she says. Oh! and +Mr. Timothy? Is everything in order in case of accidents." + +"I've got the inventory of his estate all ready; had the furniture +and pictures valued so that we know what reserves to put on. I +shall be sorry when he goes, though. Dear me! It is a time since I +first saw Mr. Timothy!" + +"We can't live for ever," said Soames, taking down his hat. + +"Nao," said Gradman; "but it'll be a pity--the last of the old +family! Shall I take up the matter of that nuisance in Old Compton +Street? Those organs--they're nahsty things." + +"Do. I must call for Miss Fleur and catch the four o'clock. Good- +day, Gradman." + +"Good-day, Mr. Soames. I hope Miss Fleur--" + +"Well enough, but gads about too much." + +"Ye-es," grated Gradman; "she's young." + +Soames went out, musing: "Old Gradman! If he were younger I'd put +him in the trust. There's nobody I can depend on to take a real +interest." + +Leaving the bilious and mathematical exactitude, the preposterous +peace of that backwater, he thought suddenly: 'During coverture! +Why can't they exclude fellows like Profond, instead of a lot of +hard-working Germans?' and was surprised at the depth of +uneasiness which could provoke so unpatriotic a thought. But there +it was! One never got a moment of real peace. Always something at +the back of everything! And he made his way towards Green Street. + +Two hours later by his watch, Thomas Gradman, stirring in his +swivel chair, closed the last drawer of his bureau, and putting +into his waistcoat pocket a bunch of keys so fat that they gave +him a protuberance on the liver side, brushed his old top hat +round with his sleeve, took his umbrella, and descended. Thick, +short, and buttoned closely into his old frock coat, he walked +towards Covent Garden market. He never missed that daily promenade +to the Tube for Highgate, and seldom some critical transaction on +the way in connection with vegetables and fruit. Generations might +be born, and hats might change, wars be fought, and Forsytes fade +away, but Thomas Gradman, faithful and grey, would take his daily +walk and buy his daily vegetable. Times were not what they were, +and his son had lost a leg, and they never gave him those nice +little plaited baskets to carry the stuff in now, and these Tubes +were convenient things--still he mustn't complain; his health was +good considering his time of life, and after fifty-four years in +the Law he was getting a round eight hundred a year and a little +worried of late, because it was mostly collector's commission on +the rents, and with all this conversion of Forsyte property going +on, it looked like drying up, and the price of living still so +high; but it was no good worrying--"The good God made us all"--as +he was in the habit of saying; still, house property in London--he +didn't know what Mr. Roger or Mr. James would say if they could +see it being sold like this--seemed to show a lack of faith; but +Mr. Soames--he worried. Life and lives in being and twenty-one +years after--beyond that you couldn't go; still, he kept his +health wonderfully--and Miss Fleur was a pretty little thing--she +was; she'd marry; but lots of people had no children nowadays--he +had had his first child at twenty-two; and Mr. Jolyon, married +while he was at Cambridge, had his child the same year--gracious +Peter! That was back in '70, a long time before old Mr. Jolyon-- +fine judge of property--had taken his Will away from Mr. James-- +dear, yes! Those were the days when they were buyin' property +right and left, and none of this khaki and fallin' over one +another to get out of things; and cucumbers at twopence; and a +melon--the old melons, that made your mouth water! Fifty years +since he went into Mr. James' office, and Mr. James had said to +him: "Now, Gradman, you're only a shaver--you pay attention, and +you'll make your five hundred a year before you've done." And he +had, and feared God, and served the Forsytes, and kept a vegetable +diet at night. And, buying a copy of John Bull--not that he +approved of it, an extravagant affair--he entered the Tube +elevator with his mere brown-paper parcel, and was borne down into +the bowels of the earth. + + + + + +VI + +SOAMES' PRIVATE LIFE + + +On his way to Green Street it occurred to Soames that he ought to +go into Dumetrius' in Suffolk Street about the possibility of the +Bolderby Old Crome. Almost worth while to have fought the War to +have the Bolderby Old Crome, as it were, in flux! Old Bolderby had +died, his son and grandson had been killed--a cousin was coming +into the estate, who meant to sell it, some said because of the +condition of England, others said because he had asthma. + +If Dumetrius once got hold of it the price would become +prohibitive; it was necessary for Soames to find out whether +Dumetrius had got it, before he tried to get it himself. He +therefore confined himself to discussing with Dumetrius whether +Monticellis would come again now that it was the fashion for a +picture to be anything except a picture; and the future of Johns, +with a side-slip into Buxton Knights. It was only when leaving +that he added: "So they're not selling the Bolderby Old Crome, +after all?" In sheer pride of racial superiority, as he had +calculated would be the case, Dumetrius replied: + +"Oh! I shall get it, Mr. Forsyte, sir." + +The flutter of his eyelid fortified Soames in a resolution to +write direct to the new Bolderby, suggesting that the only +dignified way of dealing with an Old Crome was to avoid dealers. +He therefore said: "Well, good-day!" and went, leaving Dumetrius +the wiser. + +At Green Street he found that Fleur was out and would be all the +evening; she was staying one more night in London. He cabbed on +dejectedly, and caught his train. + +He reached his house about six o'clock. The air was heavy, midges +biting, thunder about. Taking his letters he went up to his +dressing-room to cleanse himself of London. + +An uninteresting post. A receipt, a bill for purchases on behalf +of Fleur. A circular about an exhibition of etchings. A letter +beginning: + +"SIR, + +"I feel it my duty--" + +That would be an appeal or something unpleasant. He looked at once +for the signature. There was none! Incredulously he turned the +page over and examined each corner. Not being a public man, Soames +had never yet had an anonymous letter, and his first impulse was +to tear it up, as a dangerous thing; his second to read it, as a +thing still more dangerous. + +"SIR, + +"I feel it my duty to inform you that having no interest in the +matter your lady is carrying on with a foreigner--" + +Reaching that word Soames stopped mechanically and examined the +post-mark. So far as he could pierce the impenetrable disguise in +which the Post Office had wrapped it, there was something with a +"sea" at the end and a "t" in it. Chelsea? No! Battersea? Perhaps! +He read on. + +"These foreigners are all the same. Sack the lot! This one meets +your lady twice a week. I know it of my own knowledge--and to see +an Englishman put on goes against the grain. You watch it and see +if what I say isn't true. I shouldn't meddle if it wasn't a dirty +foreigner that's in it. Yours obedient." + +The sensation with which Soames dropped the letter was similar to +that he would have had entering his bedroom and finding it full of +black-beetles. The meanness of anonymity gave a shuddering +obscenity to the moment. And the worst of it was that this shadow +had been at the back of his mind ever since the Sunday evening +when Fleur had pointed down at Prosper Profond strolling on the +lawn, and said: "Prowling cat!" Had he not in connection +therewith, this very day, perused his Will and Marriage +Settlement? And now this anonymous ruffian, with nothing to gain, +apparently, save the venting of his spite against foreigners, had +wrenched it out of the obscurity in which he had hoped and wished +it would remain. To have such knowledge forced on him, at his time +of life, about Fleur's mother! He picked the letter up from the +carpet, tore it across, and then, when it hung together by just +the fold at the back, stopped tearing, and re-read it. He was +taking at that moment one of the decisive resolutions of his life. +He would NOT be forced into another scandal. No! However he +decided to deal with this matter--and it required the most far- +sighted and careful consideration--he would do nothing that might +injure Fleur. That resolution taken, his mind answered the helm +again, and he made his ablutions. His hands trembled as he dried +them. Scandal he would not have, but something must be done to +stop this sort of thing! He went into his wife's room and stood +looking round him. The idea of searching for anything which would +incriminate, and entitle him to hold a menace over her, did not +even come to him. There would be nothing--she was much too +practical. The idea of having her watched had been dismissed +before it came--too well he remembered his previous experience of +that. No! He had nothing but this torn-up letter from some +anonymous ruffian, whose impudent intrusion into his private life +he so violently resented. It was repugnant to him to make use of +it, but he might have to. What a mercy Fleur was not at home to- +night! A tap on the door broke up his painful cogitations. + +"Mr. Michael Mont, sir, is in the drawing-room. Will you see him?" + +"No," said Soames; "yes. I'll come down." + +Anything that would take his mind off for a few minutes! + +Michael Mont in flannels stood on the verandah, smoking a +cigarette. He threw it away as Soames came up, and ran his hand +through his hair. + +Soames' feeling towards this young man was singular. He was no +doubt a rackety, irresponsible young fellow according to old +standards, yet somehow likeable, with his extraordinarily cheerful +way of blurting out his opinions. + +"Come in," he said; "have you had tea?" + +Mont came in. + +"I thought Fleur would have been back, sir; but I'm glad she +isn't. The fact is, I--I'm fearfully gone on her; so fearfully +gone that I thought you'd better know. It's old-fashioned, of +course, coming to fathers first, but I thought you'd forgive that. +I went to my own dad, and he says if I settle down he'll see me +through. He rather cottons to the idea, in fact. I told him about +your Goya." + +"Oh!" said Soames, inexpressibly dry. "He rather cottons?" + +"Yes, sir; do you?" + +Soames smiled faintly. "You see," resumed Mont, twiddling his +straw hat, while his hair, ears, eyebrows, all seemed to stand up +from excitement, "when you've been through the War you can't help +being in a hurry." + +"To get married; and unmarried afterwards," said Soames slowly. + +"Not from Fleur, sir. Imagine, if you were me!" + +Soames cleared his throat. That way of putting it was forcible +enough. + +"Fleur's too young," he said. + +"Oh! no, sir. We're awfully old nowadays. My dad seems to me a +perfect babe; his thinking apparatus hasn't turned a hair. But +he's a Baronight, of course; that keeps him back." + +"Baronight," repeated Soames; "what may that be?" + +"Bart, sir. I shall be a Bart some day. But I shall live it down, +you know." + +"Go away and live this down," said Soames. + +Young Mont said imploringly: "Oh! no, sir. I simply must hang +round, or I shouldn't have a dog's chance. You'll let Fleur do +what she likes, I suppose, anyway. Madame passes me." + +"Indeed!" said Soames frigidly. + +"You don't really bar me, do you?" and the young man looked so +doleful that Soames smiled. + +"You may think you're very old," he said; "but you strike me as +extremely young. To rattle ahead of everything is not a proof of +maturity." + +"All right, sir; I give you our age. But to show you I mean +business--I've got a job." + +"Glad to hear it." + +"Joined a publisher; my governor is putting up the stakes." + +Soames put his hand over his mouth--he had so very nearly said: +"God help the publisher." His grey eyes scrutinised the agitated +young man. + +"I don't dislike you, Mr. Mont, but Fleur is everything to me. +Everything--do you understand?" + +"Yes, sir, I know; but so she is to me." + +"That's as may be. I'm glad you've told me, however. And now I +think there's nothing more to be said." + +"I know it rests with her, sir." + +"It will rest with her a long time, I hope." + +"You aren't cheering," said Mont suddenly. + +"No," said Soames; "my experience of life has not made me anxious +to couple people in a hurry. Good-night, Mr. Mont. I shan't tell +Fleur what you've said." + +"Oh!" murmured Mont blankly; "I really could knock my brains out +for want of her. She knows that perfectly well." + +"I dare say," and Soames held out his hand. A distracted squeeze, +a heavy sigh, and, soon after, sounds from the young man's motor- +cycle called up visions of flying dust and broken bones. + +'The younger generation!' he thought heavily, and went out on to +the lawn. The gardeners had been mowing, and there was still the +smell of fresh-cut grass--the thundery air kept all scents close +to earth. The sky was of a purplish hue--the poplars black. Two or +three boats passed on the river, scuttling, as it were, for +shelter before the storm. 'Three days fine weather,' thought +Soames, 'and then a storm!' Where was Annette? With that chap, for +all he knew--she was a young woman! Impressed with the queer +charity of that thought, he entered the summer-house and sat down. +The fact was--and he admitted it--Fleur was so much to him that +his wife was very little--very little; French--had hardly been +more than a mistress, and he was getting indifferent to that side +of things! It was odd how, with all his ingrained care for +moderation and secure investment, Soames ever put his emotional +eggs into one basket. First Irene--now Fleur. He was just +conscious of it, sitting there, conscious of its odd +dangerousness. It had brought him to wreck and scandal once, but +now--now it should save him! He cared so much for Fleur that he +would have no further scandal. If only he could get at that +anonymous letter writer, he would teach the fellow not to meddle +and stir up mud at the bottom of water which he wished should +remain stagnant!... A distant flash, a low rumble, and large drops +of rain spattered on the thatch above him. He remained +indifferent, tracing a pattern with his finger on the dusty +surface of a little rustic table. Fleur's future! 'I want fair +sailing for her,' he thought. 'Nothing else matters at my time of +life.' A lonely business--life! What you had you never could keep +to yourself! As you warned one off, you let another in. One could +make sure of nothing! He reached up and pulled a red rambler rose +from a cluster which blocked the window. Flowers grew and dropped-- +you couldn't keep them! The thunder rumbled and crashed, +travelling east along the river, the paling flashes flicked his +eyes; the poplar tops showed sharp and dense against the sky, a +heavy shower rustled and rattled and veiled in the little house +wherein he sat, indifferent, thinking. + +When the storm was over, he left his retreat and went down the wet +path to the river bank. + +Two swans had come, sheltering in among the reeds. He knew the +birds well, and stood watching the dignity in the curve of those +white necks and formidable snake-like heads. 'Not dignified--what +I have to do!' he thought. And yet it must be tackled, lest worse +befell. Annette must be back by now from wherever she had gone, +for it was nearly dinner-time, and as the moment for seeing her +approached, the difficulty of knowing what to say and how to say +it had increased. A new and scaring thought occurred to him. +Suppose she wanted her liberty to marry this fellow! Well, if she +did, she couldn't have it. He had not married her for that. The +image of Prosper Profond dawdled before him reassuringly. Not a +marrying man! No, no! Anger replaced that momentary scare. 'He had +better not come my way,' he thought. The mongrel represented--! +Ah! what did Prosper Profond represent? Nothing that mattered +surely. And yet something real enough in the world--unmorality let +off its chain, disillusionment on the prowl! That expression +Annette had caught from him: "Je m'en fiche!" A fatalistic chap! A +Continental--a cosmopolitan--a product of the age! If there were +condemnation more complete, Soames felt that he did not know it. + +The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into +some distance of their own. One of them uttered a little hiss, +wagged its tail, turned as if answering to a rudder, and swam +away. The other followed. Their white bodies, their stately necks, +passed out of his sight, and he went towards the house. + +Annette was in the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, and he +thought as he went up-stairs: 'Handsome is as handsome does.' +Handsome! Except for remarks about the curtains in the drawing- +room, and the storm, there was practically no conversation during +a meal distinguished by exactitude of quantity and perfection of +quality. Soames drank nothing. He followed her into the drawing- +room afterwards, and found her smoking a cigarette on the sofa +between the two French windows. She was leaning back, almost +upright, in a low black frock, with her knees crossed and her blue +eyes half closed; grey-blue smoke issued from her red, rather full +lips, a fillet bound her chestnut hair, she wore the thinnest silk +stockings, and shoes with very high heels showing off her instep. +A fine piece in any room! Soames, who held that torn letter in a +hand thrust deep into the side-pocket of his dinner-jacket, said: + +"I'm going to shut the window; the damp's lifting in." + +He did so, and stood looking at a David Cox adorning the cream- +panelled wall close by. + +What was she thinking of? He had never understood a woman in his +life--except Fleur--and Fleur not always! His heart beat fast. But +if he meant to do it, now was the moment. Turning from the David +Cox, he took out the torn letter. + +"I've had this." + +Her eyes widened, stared at him, and hardened. + +Soames handed her the letter. + +"It's torn, but you can read it." And he turned back to the David +Cox--a seapiece, of good tone but without movement enough. 'I +wonder what that chap's doing at this moment?' he thought. 'I'll +astonish him yet.' Out of the corner of his eye he saw Annette +holding the letter rigidly; her eyes moved from side to side under +her darkened lashes and frowning darkened eyebrows. She dropped +the letter, gave a little shiver, smiled, and said: + +"Dirrty!" + +"I quite agree," said Soames; "degrading. Is it true?" + +A tooth fastened on her red lower lip. "And what if it were?" + +She was brazen! + +"Is that all you have to say?" + +"No." + +"Well, speak out!" + +"What is the good of talking?" + +Soames said icily: "So you admit it?" + +"I admit nothing. You are a fool to ask. A man like you should not +ask. It is dangerous." + +Soames made a tour of the room, to subdue his rising anger. + +"Do you remember," he said, halting in front of her, "what you +were when I married you? Working at accounts in a restaurant." + +"Do you remember that I was not half your age?" + +Soames broke off the hard encounter of their eyes, and went back +to the David Cox. + +"I am not going to bandy words. I require you to give up this-- +friendship. I think of the matter entirely as it affects Fleur." + +"Ah!--Fleur!" + +"Yes," said Soames stubbornly; "Fleur. She is your child as well +as mine." + +"It is kind to admit that!" + +"Are you going to do what I say?" + +"I refuse to tell you." + +"Then I must make you." + +Annette smiled. + +"No, Soames," she said. "You are helpless. Do not say things that +you will regret." + +Anger swelled the veins on his forehead. He opened his mouth to +vent that emotion, and--could not. Annette went on: + +"There shall be no more such letters, I promise you. That is +enough." + +Soames writhed. He had a sense of being treated like a child by +this woman who had deserved he did not know what. + +"When two people have married, and lived like us, Soames, they had +better be quiet about each other. There are things one does not +drag up into the light for people to laugh at. You will be quiet, +then; not for my sake--for your own. You are getting old; I am +not, yet. You have made me ver-ry practical." Soames, who had +passed through all the sensations of being choked, repeated dully: + +"I require you to give up this friendship." + +"And if I do not?" + +"Then--then I will cut you out of my Will." + +Somehow it did not seem to meet the case. Annette laughed. + +"You will live a long time, Soames." + +"You--you are a bad woman," said Soames suddenly. + +Annette shrugged her shoulders. + +"I do not think so. Living with you has killed things in me, it is +true; but I am not a bad woman. I am sensible--that is all. And so +will you be when you have thought it over." + +"I shall see this man," said Soames sullenly, "and warn him off." + +"Mon cher, you are funny. You do not want me, you have as much of +me as you want; and you wish the rest of me to be dead. I admit +nothing, but I am not going to be dead, Soames, at my age; so you +had better be quiet, I tell you. I myself will make no scandal; +none. Now, I am not saying any more, whatever you do." + +She reached out, took a French novel off a little table, and +opened it. Soames watched her, silenced by the tumult of his +feelings. The thought of that man was almost making him want her, +and this was a revelation of their relationship, startling to one +little given to introspective philosophy. Without saying another +word he went out and up to the picture-gallery. This came of +marrying a Frenchwoman! And yet, without her there would have been +no Fleur! She had served her purpose. + +'She's right,' he thought; 'I can do nothing. I don't even KNOW +that there's anything in it.' The instinct of self-preservation +warned him to batten down his hatches, to smother the fire with +want of air. Unless one believed there was something in a thing, +there wasn't. + +That night he went into her room. She received him in the most +matter-of-fact way, as if there had been no scene between them. +And he returned to his own room with a curious sense of peace. If +one didn't choose to see, one needn't. And he did not choose--in +future he did not choose. There was nothing to be gained by it-- +nothing! Opening the drawer he took from the sachet a +handkerchief, and the framed photograph of Fleur. When he had +looked at it a little he slipped it down, and there was that other +one--that old one of Irene. An owl hooted while he stood in his +window gazing at it. The owl hooted, the red climbing roses seemed +to deepen in colour, there came a scent of lime-blossom. God! That +had been a different thing! Passion--Memory! Dust! + + + + + +VII + +JUNE TAKES A HAND + + +One who was a sculptor, a Slav, a sometime resident in New York, +an egoist, and impecunious, was to be found of an evening in June +Forsyte's studio on the bank of the Thames at Chiswick. On the +evening of July 6, Boris Strumolowski--several of whose works were +on show there because they were as yet too advanced to be on show +anywhere else--had begun well, with that aloof and rather +Christlike silence which admirably suited his youthful, round, +broad-cheekboned countenance framed in bright hair banged like a +girl's. June had known him three weeks, and he still seemed to her +the principal embodiment of genius, and hope of the future; a sort +of Star of the East which had strayed into an unappreciative West. +Until that evening he had conversationally confined himself to +recording his impressions of the United States, whose dust he had +just shaken from off his feet--a country, in his opinion, so +barbarous in every way that he had sold practically nothing there, +and become an object of suspicion to the police; a country, as he +said, without a race of its own, without liberty, equality, or +fraternity, without principles, traditions, taste, without--in a +word--a soul. He had left it for his own good, and come to the +only other country where he could live well. June had dwelt +unhappily on him in her lonely moments, standing before his +creations--frightening, but powerful and symbolic once they had +been explained! That he, haloed by bright hair like an early +Italian painting, and absorbed in his genius to the exclusion of +all else--the only sign of course by which real genius could be +told--should still be a "lame duck" agitated her warm heart +almost to the exclusion of Paul Post. And she had begun to take +steps to clear her Gallery, in order to fill it with Strumolowski +masterpieces. She had at once encountered trouble. Paul Post had +kicked; Vospovitch had stung. With all the emphasis of a genius +which she did not as yet deny them, they had demanded another six +weeks at least of her Gallery. The American stream, still flowing +in, would soon be flowing out. The American stream was their +right, their only hope, their salvation--since nobody in this +"beastly" country cared for Art. June had yielded to the +demonstration. After all Boris would not mind their having the +full benefit of an American stream, which he himself so violently +despised. + +This evening she had put that to Boris with nobody else present, +except Hannah Hobdey, the mediaeval black-and-whitist, and Jimmy +Portugal, editor of the Neo-Artist. She had put it to him with +that sudden confidence which continual contact with the neo- +artistic world had never been able to dry up in her warm and +generous nature. He had not broken his Christlike silence, +however, for more than two minutes before she began to move her +blue eyes from side to side, as a cat moves its tail. This--he +said--was characteristic of England, the most selfish country in +the world; the country which sucked the blood of other countries; +destroyed the brains and hearts of Irishmen, Hindus, Egyptians, +Boers, and Burmese, all the finest races in the world; bullying, +hypocritical England! This was what he had expected, coming to +such a country, where the climate was all fog, and the people all +tradesmen perfectly blind to Art, and sunk in profiteering and the +grossest materialism. Conscious that Hannah Hobdey was murmuring: +"Hear, hear!" and Jimmy Portugal sniggering, June grew crimson, +and suddenly rapped out: + +"Then why did you ever come? We didn't ask you." The remark was so +singularly at variance with all that she had led him to expect +from her, that Strumolowski stretched out his hand and took a +cigarette. + +"England never wants an idealist," he said. + +But in June something primitively English was thoroughly upset; +old Jolyon's sense of justice had risen, as it were, from bed. +"You come and sponge on us," she said, "and then abuse us. If you +think that's playing the game, I don't." + +She now discovered that which others had discovered before her-- +the thickness of hide beneath which the sensibility of genius is +sometimes veiled. Strumolowski's young and ingenuous face became +the incarnation of a sneer. + +"Sponge, one does not sponge, one takes what is owing--a tenth +part of what is owing. You will repent to say that, Miss Forsyte." + +"Oh, no," said June, "I shan't." + +"Ah! We know very well, we artists--you take us to get what you +can out of us. I want nothing from you"--and he blew out a cloud +of June's smoke. + +Decision rose in an icy puff from the turmoil of insulted shame +within her. "Very well, then, you can take your things away." + +And, almost in the same moment, she thought: 'Poor boy! He's only +got a garret, and probably not a taxi fare. In front of these +people, too; it's positively disgusting!' + +Young Strumolowski shook his head violently; his hair, thick, +smooth, close as a golden plate, did not fall off. + +"I can live on nothing," he said shrilly; "I have often had to for +the sake of my Art. It is you bourgeois who force us to spend +money." + +The words hit June like a pebble, in the ribs. After all she had +done for Art, all her identification with its troubles and lame +ducks. She was struggling for adequate words when the door was +opened, and her Austrian murmured: + +"A young lady, gnadiges fraulein." + +"Where?" + +"In the little meal-room." + +With a glance at Boris Strumolowski, at Hannah Hobdey, at Jimmy +Portugal, June said nothing, and went out, devoid of equanimity. +Entering the "little meal-room," she perceived the young lady to +be Fleur--looking very pretty, if pale. At this disenchanted +moment a lame duck of her own breed was welcome to June, so +homoeopathic by instinct. + +The girl must have come, of course, because of Jon; or, if not, at +least to get something out of her. And June felt just then that to +assist somebody was the only bearable thing. + +"So you've remembered to come," she said. + +"Yes. What a jolly little duck of a house! But please don't let me +bother you, if you've got people." + +"Not at all," said June. "I want to let them stew in their own +juice for a bit. Have you come about Jon?" + +"You said you thought we ought to be told. Well, I've found out." + +"Oh!" said June blankly. "Not nice, is it?" + +They were standing one on each side of the little bare table at +which June took her meals. A vase on it was full of Iceland +poppies; the girl raised her hand and touched them with a gloved +finger. To her new-fangled dress, frilly about the hips and tight +below the knees, June took a sudden liking--a charming colour, +flax-blue. + +'She makes a picture,' thought June. Her little room, with its +whitewashed walls, its floor and hearth of old pink brick, its +black paint, and latticed window athwart which the last of the +sunlight was shining, had never looked so charming, set off by +this young figure, with the creamy, slightly frowning face. She +remembered with sudden vividness how nice she herself had looked +in those old days when HER heart was set on Philip Bosinney, that +dead lover, who had broken from her to destroy for ever Irene's +allegiance to this girl's father. Did Fleur know of that, too? + +"Well," she said, "what are you going to do?" + +It was some seconds before Fleur answered. + +"I don't want Jon to suffer. I must see him once more to put an +end to it." + +"You're going to put an end to it!" + +"What else is there to do?" + +The girl seemed to June, suddenly, intolerably spiritless. + +"I suppose you're right," she muttered. "I know my father thinks +so; but--I should never have done it myself. I can't take things +lying down." + +How poised and watchful that girl looked; how unemotional her +voice sounded! + +"People WILL assume that I'm in love." + +"Well, aren't you?" + +Fleur shrugged her shoulders. 'I might have known it,' thought +June; 'she's Soames' daughter--fish! And yet--he!' + +"Well, what do you want ME to do?" she said with a sort of +disgust. + +"Could I see Jon here to-morrow on his way down to Holly's? He'd +come if you sent him a line to-night, and perhaps afterwards you'd +let them know quietly at Robin Hill that it's all over, and that +they needn't tell Jon about his mother." + +"All right!" said June abruptly. "I'll write now, and you can post +it. Half-past two to-morrow. I shan't be in, myself." + +She sat down at the tiny bureau which filled one corner. When she +looked round with the finished note Fleur was still touching the +poppies with her gloved finger. + +June licked a stamp. "Well, here it is. If you're not in love, of +course, there's no more to be said. Jon's lucky." + +Fleur took the note. "Thanks awfully!" + +'Cold-blooded little baggage!' thought June. Jon, son of her +father, to love, and not to be loved by the daughter of--Soames! +It was humiliating! + +"Is that all?" + +Fleur nodded; her frills shook and trembled as she swayed towards +the door. + +"Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye! ... Little piece of fashion!" muttered June, closing +the door. "That family!" And she marched back towards her studio. +Boris Strumolowski had regained his Christlike silence, and Jimmy +Portugal was damning everybody, except the group in whose behalf +he ran the Neo-Artist. Among the condemned were Eric Cobbley, and +several other "lame-duck" genii who at one time or another had +held first place in the repertoire of June's aid and adoration. +She experienced a sense of futility and disgust, and went to the +window to let the river-wind blow those squeaky words away. + +But when at length Jimmy Portugal had finished, and gone with +Hannah Hobdey, she sat down and mothered young Strumolowski for +half an hour, promising him a month, at least, of the American +stream; so that he went away with his halo in perfect order. 'In +spite of all,' June thought, 'Boris IS wonderful.' + + + + + +VIII + +THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH + + +To know that your hand is against every one's is--for some +natures--to experience a sense of moral release. Fleur felt no +remorse when she left June's house. Reading condemnatory +resentment in her little kinswoman's blue eyes--she was glad that +she had fooled her, despising June because that elderly idealist +had not seen what she was after. + +End it, forsooth! She would soon show them all that she was only +just beginning. And she smiled to herself on the top of the 'bus +which carried her back to Mayfair. But the smile died, squeezed +out by spasms of anticipation and anxiety. Would she be able to +manage Jon? She had taken the bit between her teeth, but could she +make him take it too? She knew the truth and the real danger of +delay--he knew neither; therein lay all the difference in the +world. + +'Suppose I tell him,' she thought; 'wouldn't it really be safer?' +This hideous luck had no right to spoil their love; he must see +that! They could not let it! People always accepted an +accomplished fact, in time! From that piece of philosophy-- +profound enough at her age--she passed to another consideration +less philosophic. If she persuaded Jon to a quick and secret +marriage, and he found out afterwards that she had known the +truth! What then? Jon hated subterfuge. Again, then, would it not +be better to tell him? But the memory of his mother's face kept +intruding on that impulse. Fleur was afraid. His mother had power +over him; more power perhaps than she herself. Who could tell? It +was too great a risk. Deep-sunk in these instinctive calculations +she was carried on past Green Street as far as the Ritz Hotel. She +got down there, and walked back on the Green Park side. The storm +had washed every tree; they still dripped. Heavy drops fell on to +her frills, and to avoid them she crossed over under the eyes of +the Iseeum Club. Chancing to look up she saw Monsieur Profond with +a tall stout man in the bay window. Turning into Green Street she +heard her name called, and saw "that prowler" coming up. He took +off his hat--a glossy "bowler" such as she particularly detested: + +"Good-evenin'! Miss Forsyde. Isn't there a small thing I can do +for you?" + +"Yes, pass by on the other side." + +"I say! Why do you dislike me?" + +"It looks like it." + +"Well, then, because you make me feel life isn't worth living." + +Monsieur Profond smiled. + +"Look here, Miss Forsyde, don't worry. It'll be all right. Nothing +lasts." + +"Things do last," cried Fleur; "with me anyhow--especially likes +and dislikes." + +"Well, that makes me a bit un'appy." + +"I should have thought nothing could ever make you happy or +unhappy." + +"I don't like to annoy other people. I'm goin' on my yacht." + +Fleur looked at him, startled. + +"Where?" + +"Small voyage to the South Seas or somewhere," said Monsieur +Profond. + +Fleur suffered relief and a sense of insult. Clearly he meant to +convey that he was breaking with her mother. How dared he have +anything to break, and yet how dared he break it? + +"Good-night, Miss Forsyde! Remember me to Mrs. Dartie. I'm not so +bad, really. Good-night!" Fleur left him standing there with his +hat raised. Stealing a look round, she saw him stroll--immaculate +and heavy--back towards his Club. + +'He can't even love with conviction,' she thought. 'What will +Mother do?' + +Her dreams that night were endless and uneasy; she rose heavy and +unrested, and went at once to the study of Whitaker's Almanac. A +Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of any +situation. She might conquer Jon's prejudice, but without exact +machinery to complete their desperate resolve, nothing would +happen. From the invaluable tome she learned that they must each +be twenty-one; or some one's consent would be necessary, which of +course was unobtainable; then she became lost in directions +concerning licenses, certificates, notices, districts, coming +finally to the word "perjury." But that was nonsense! Who would +really mind their giving wrong ages in order to be married for +love! She ate hardly any breakfast, and went back to Whitaker. The +more she studied the less sure she became; till, idly turning the +pages, she came to Scotland. People could be married there without +any of this nonsense. She had only to go and stay there twenty-one +days, then Jon could come, and in front of two people they could +declare themselves married. And what was more--they would be! It +was far the best way; and at once she ran over her school- +fellows. There was Mary Lambe who lived in Edinburgh and was +"quite a sport!" She had a brother too. She could stay with Mary +Lambe, who with her brother would serve for witnesses. She well +knew that some girls would think all this unnecessary, and that +all she and Jon need do was to go away together for a week-end and +then say to their people: "We are married by Nature, we must now +be married by Law." But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a +proceeding dubious, and to dread her father's face when he heard +of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had +an opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No! Mary +Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to +Scotland. More at ease now, she packed, avoided her aunt, and took +a 'bus to Chiswick. She was too early and went on to Kew Gardens. +She found no peace among its flower-beds, labelled trees, and +broad green spaces, and having lunched off anchovy-paste +sandwiches and coffee, returned to Chiswick and rang June's bell. +The Austrian admitted her to the "little meal-room." Now that she +knew what she and Jon were up against, her longing for him had +increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or +dangerous paint such as they had tried to take from her as a +child. If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and +all, she felt like dying of privation. By hook or crook she must +and would get him! A round dim mirror of very old glass hung over +the pink brick hearth. She stood looking at herself reflected in +it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept +passing through her nerves. Then she heard the bell ring, and, +stealing to the window, saw him standing on, the doorstep +smoothing his hair and lips, as if he too were trying to subdue +the fluttering of his nerves. + +She was sitting on one of the two rush-seated chairs, with her +back to the door, when he came in, and she said at once: + +"Sit down, Jon, I want to talk seriously." + +Jon sat on the table by her side, and without looking at him she +went on: + +"If you don't want to lose me, we must get married." + +Jon gasped. + +"Why? Is there anything new?" + +"No, but I felt it at Robin Hill, and among my people." + +"But--" stammered Jon, "at Robin Hill--it was all smooth--and +they've said nothing to me." + +"But they mean to stop us. Your mother's face was enough. And my +father's." + +"Have you seen him since?" + +Fleur nodded. What mattered a few supplementary lies? + +"But," said Jon eagerly, "I can't see how they can feel like that +after all these years." + +Fleur looked up at him. + +"Perhaps you don't love me enough." + +"Not love you enough! Why-I--" + +"Then make sure of me" + +"Without telling them?" + +"Not till after." + +Jon was silent. How much older he looked than on that day, barely +two months ago, when she first saw him--quite two years older! + +"It would hurt Mother awfully," he said. + +Fleur drew her hand away. + +"You've got to choose." + +Jon slid off the table onto his knees. + +"But why not tell them? They can't really stop us, Fleur!" + +"They can! I tell you, they can." + +"How?" + +"We're utterly dependent--by putting money pressure, and all sorts +of other pressure. I'm not patient, Jon." + +"But it's deceiving them." + +Fleur got up. + +"You can't really love me, or you wouldn't hesitate. 'He either +fears his fate too much--!'" + +Lifting his hands to her waist, Jon forced her to sit down again. +She hurried on: + +"I've planned it all out. We've only to go to Scotland. When we're +married they'll soon come round. People always come round to +facts. Don't you SEE, Jon?" + +"But to hurt them so awfully!" + +So he would rather hurt her than those people of his! + +"All right, then; let me go!" + +Jon got up and put his back against the door. "I expect you're +right," he said slowly; "but I want to think it over." + +She could see that he was seething with feelings he wanted to +express; but she did not mean to help him. She hated herself at +this moment, and almost hated him. + +Why had she to do all the work to secure their love? It wasn't +fair. And then she saw his eyes, adoring and distressed. + +"Don't look like that! I only don't want to lose you, Jon." + +"You can't lose me so long as you want me." + +"Oh, yes, I can." + +Jon put his hands on her shoulders. + +"Fleur, do you know anything you haven't told me?" + +It was the point-blank question she had dreaded. She looked +straight at him, and answered: "No." She had burnt her boats; but +what did it matter, if she got him? He would forgive her. And +throwing her arms round his neck, she kissed him on the lips. She +was winning! She felt it in the beating of his heart against her, +in the closing of his eyes. "I want to make sure! I want to make +sure!" she whispered. "Promise!" + +Jon did not answer. His face had the stillness of extreme trouble. +At last he said: + +"It's like hitting them. I must think a little, Fleur. I really +must." + +Fleur slipped out of his arms. + +"Oh! Very well!" And suddenly she burst into tears of +disappointment, shame, and overstrain. Followed five minutes of +acute misery. Jon's remorse and tenderness knew no bounds; but he +did not promise. Despite her will to cry: "Very well, then, if you +don't love me enough--good-bye!" she dared not. From birth +accustomed to her own way, this check from one so young, so +tender, so devoted, baffled and surprised her. She wanted to push +him away from her, to try what anger and coldness would do, and +again she dared not. The knowledge that she was scheming to rush +him blindfold into the irrevocable weakened everything--weakened +the sincerity of pique, and the sincerity of passion; even her +kisses had not the lure she wished for them. That stormy little +meeting ended inconclusively. + +"Will you some tea, gnadiges Fraulein?" + +Pushing Jon from her, she cried out: + +"No--no, thank you! I'm just going." + +And before he could prevent her she was gone. + +She went stealthily, mopping her flushed, stained cheeks, +frightened, angry, very miserable. She had stirred Jon up so +fearfully, yet nothing definite was promised or arranged! But the +more uncertain and hazardous the future, the more "the will to +have" worked its tentacles into the flesh of her heart--like some +burrowing tick! + +No one was at Green Street. Winifred had gone with Imogen to see a +play which some said was allegorical, and others "very exciting, +don't you know?" It was because of what others said that Winifred +and Imogen had gone. Fleur went on to Paddington. Through the +carriage the air from the brick-kilns of West Drayton and the late +hay-fields fanned her still-flushed cheeks. Flowers had seemed to +be had for the picking; now they were all thorned and prickled. +But the golden flower within the crown of spikes seemed to her +tenacious spirit all the fairer and more desirable. + + + + + +IX + +FAT IN THE FIRE + + +On reaching home Fleur found an atmosphere so peculiar that it +penetrated even the perplexed aura of her own private life. Her +mother was in blue stockingette and a brown study; her father in a +white felt hat and the vinery. Neither of them had a word to throw +to a dog. 'Is it because of me?' thought Fleur. 'Or because of +Profond?' To her mother she said: + +"What's the matter with Father?" + +Her mother answered with a shrug of her shoulders. + +To her father: + +"What's the matter with Mother?" + +Her father answered: + +"Matter? What should be the matter?" and gave her a sharp look. + +"By the way," murmured Fleur, "Monsieur Profond is going a 'small' +voyage on his yacht, to the South Seas." + +Soames examined a branch on which no grapes were growing. + +"This vine's a failure," he said. "I've had young Mont here. He +asked me something about you." + +"Oh! How do you like him, Father?" + +"He--he's a product--like all these young people." + +"What were you at his age, dear?" + +Soames smiled grimly. + +"We went to work, and didn't play about--flying and motoring, and +making love." + +"Didn't you ever make love?" + +She avoided looking at him while she said that, but she saw him +well enough. His pale face had reddened, his eyebrows, where +darkness was still mingled with the grey, had come close together. + +"I had no time or inclination to philander." + +"Perhaps you had a grand passion." + +Soames looked at her intently. + +"Yes--if you want to know--and much good it did me." He moved +away, along by the hot-water pipes. Fleur tiptoed silently after +him. + +"Tell me about it, Father!" + +Soames became very still. + +"What should you want to know about such things, at your age?" + +"Is she alive?" + +He nodded. + +"And married?" + +"Yes." + +"It's Jon Forsyte's mother, isn't it? And she was your wife +first." + +It was said in a flash of intuition. Surely his opposition came +from his anxiety that she should not know of that old wound to his +pride. But she was startled. To see some one so old and calm wince +as if struck, to hear so sharp a note of pain in his voice! + +"Who told you that? If your aunt--! I can't bear the affair talked +of." + +"But, darling," said Fleur, softly, "it's so long ago." + +"Long ago or not, I--" + +Fleur stood stroking his arm. + +"I've tried to forget," he said suddenly; "I don't wish to be +reminded." And then, as if venting some long and secret +irritation, he added: "In these days people don't understand. +Grand passion, indeed! No one knows what it is." + +"I do," said Fleur, almost in a whisper. + +Soames, who had turned his back on her, spun round. + +"What are you talking of--a child like you!" + +"Perhaps I've inherited it, Father." + +"What?" + +"For her son, you see." + +He was pale as a sheet, and she knew that she was as bad. They +stood staring at each other in the steamy heat, redolent of the +mushy scent of earth, of potted geranium, and of vines coming +along fast. + +"This is crazy," said Soames at last, between dry lips. + +Scarcely moving her own, she murmured: + +"Don't be angry, Father. I can't help it." + +But she could see he wasn't angry; only scared, deeply scared. + +"I thought that foolishness," he stammered, "was all forgotten." + +"Oh, no! It's ten times what it was." + +Soames kicked at the hot-water pipe. The hapless movement touched +her, who had no fear of her father--none. + +"Dearest!" she said: "What must be, must, you know." + +"Must!" repeated Soames. "You don't know what you're talking of. +Has that boy been told?" + +The blood rushed into her cheeks. + +"Not yet." + +He had turned from her again, and, with one shoulder a little +raised, stood staring fixedly at a joint in the pipes. + +"It's most distasteful to me," he said suddenly; "nothing could be +more so. Son of that fellow--It's--it's--perverse!" + +She had noted, almost unconsciously, that he did not say "son of +that woman," and again her intuition began working. + +Did the ghost of that grand passion linger in some corner of his +heart? + +She slipped her hand under his arm. + +"Jon's father is quite ill and old; I saw him." + +"You--?" + +"Yes, I went there with Jon; I saw them both." + +"Well, and what did they say to you?" + +"Nothing. They were very polite." + +"They would be." He resumed his contemplation of the pipe-joint, +and then said suddenly: "I must think this over--I'll speak to you +again to-night." + +She knew this was final for the moment, and stole away, leaving +him still looking at the pipe-joint. She wandered into the fruit- +garden, among the raspberry and currant bushes, without impetus to +pick and eat. Two months ago--she was light-hearted! Even two days +ago--light-hearted, before Prosper Profond told her. Now she felt +tangled in a web--of passions, vested rights, oppressions and +revolts, the ties of love and hate. At this dark moment of +discouragement there seemed, even to her hold-fast nature, no way +out. How deal with it--how sway and bend things to her will, and +get her heart's desire? And, suddenly, round the corner of the +high box hedge, she came plump on her mother, walking swiftly, +with an open letter in her hand. Her bosom was heaving, her eyes +dilated, her cheeks flushed. Instantly Fleur thought: "The yacht! +Poor Mother!" + +Annette gave her a wide startled look, and said: + +"J'ai la migraine." + +"I'm awfully sorry, Mother." + +"Oh; yes! you and your father--sorry!" + +"But, Mother--I am. I know what it feels like." + +Annette's startled eyes grew wide, till the whites showed above +them. "You innocent!" she said. + +Her mother--so self-possessed, and commonsensical--to look and +speak like this! It was all frightening! Her father, her mother, +herself! And only two months back they had seemed to have +everything they wanted in this world. + +Annette crumpled the letter in her hand. Fleur knew that she must +ignore the sight. + +"Can't I do anything for your head, Mother?" + +Annette shook that head and walked on, swaying her hips. + +'It's cruel,' thought Fleur, 'and I was glad! That man! What do +men come prowling for, disturbing everything! I suppose he's tired +of her. What business has he to be tired of my mother? What +business!' And at that thought, so natural and so peculiar, she +uttered a little choked laugh. + +She ought, of course, to be delighted, but what was there to be +delighted at? Her father didn't really care! Her mother did, +perhaps? She entered the orchard, and sat down under a cherry- +tree. A breeze sighed in the higher boughs; the sky seen through +their green was very blue and very white in cloud--those heavy +white clouds almost always present in river landscape. Bees, +sheltering out of the wind, hummed softly, and over the lush grass +fell the thick shade from those fruit-trees planted by her father +five-and-twenty years ago. Birds were almost silent, the cuckoos +had ceased to sing, but wood-pigeons were cooing. The breath and +drone and cooing of high summer were not for long a sedative to +her excited nerves. Crouched over her knees she began to scheme. +Her father must be made to back her up. Why should he mind so long +as she was happy? She had not lived for nearly nineteen years +without knowing that her future was all he really cared about. She +had, then, only to convince him that her future could not be happy +without Jon. He thought it a mad fancy. How foolish the old were, +thinking they could tell what the young felt! Had not he confessed +that he--when young--had loved with a grand passion! He ought to +understand. 'He piles up his money for me,' she thought; 'but +what's the use, if I'm not going to be happy?' Money, and all it +bought, did not bring happiness. Love only brought that. The ox- +eyed daisies in this orchard, which gave it such a moony look +sometimes, grew wild and happy, and had their hour. 'They oughtn't +to have called me Fleur,' she mused, 'if they didn't mean me to +have my hour, and be happy while it lasts.' Nothing real stood in +the way, like poverty, or disease--sentiment only, a ghost from +the unhappy past! Jon was right. They wouldn't let you live, these +old people! They made mistakes, committed crimes, and wanted their +children to go on paying! The breeze died away; midges began to +bite. She got up, plucked a piece of honeysuckle, and went in. + +It was hot that night. Both she and her mother had put on thin, +pale low frocks. The dinner flowers were pale. Fleur was struck +with the pale look of everything: her father's face, her mother's +shoulders; the pale panelled walls, the pale-grey velvety carpet, +the lamp-shade, even the soup was pale. There was not one spot of +colour in the room, not even wine in the pale glasses, for no one +drank it. What was not pale was black--her father's clothes, the +butler's clothes, her retriever stretched out exhausted in the +window, the curtains black with a cream pattern. A moth came in, +and that was pale. And silent was that half-mourning dinner in the +heat. + +Her father called her back as she was following her mother out. + +She sat down beside him at the table, and, unpinning the pale +honeysuckle, put it to her nose. + +"I've been thinking," he said. + +"Yes, dear?" + +"It's extremely painful for me to talk, but there's no help for +it. I don't know if you understand how much you are to me--I've +never spoken of it, I didn't think it necessary; but--but you're +everything. Your mother--"he paused, staring at his finger-bowl of +Venetian glass. + +"Yes?" + +"I've only you to look to. I've never had--never wanted anything +else, since you were born." + +"I know," Fleur murmured. + +Soames moistened his lips. + +"You may think this a matter I can smooth over and arrange for +you. You're mistaken. I--I'm helpless." + +Fleur did not speak. + +"Quite apart from my own feelings," went on Soames with more +resolution, "those two are not amenable to anything I can say. +They--they hate me, as people always hate those whom they have +injured." + +"But he--Jon--" + +"He's their flesh and blood, her only child. Probably he means to +her what you mean to me. It's a deadlock." + +"No," cried Fleur, "no, Father!" + +Soames leaned back, the image of pale patience, as if resolved on +the betrayal of no emotion. + +"Listen!" he said. "You're putting the feelings of two months--two +months--against the feelings of thirty-five years! What chance do +you think you have? Two months--your very first love-affair, a +matter of half a dozen meetings, a few walks and talks, a few +kisses--against, against what you can't imagine, what no one +could who hasn't been through it. Come, be reasonable, Fleur! It's +midsummer madness!" + +Fleur tore the honeysuckle into little, slow bits. "The madness is +in letting the past spoil it all. What do we care about the past? +It's our lives, not yours." + +Soames raised his hand to his forehead, where suddenly she saw +moisture shining. + +"Whose child are you?" he said. "Whose child is he? The present is +linked with the past, the future with both. There's no getting +away from that." + +She had never heard philosophy pass those lips before. Impressed +even in her agitation, she leaned her elbows on the table, her +chin on her hands. + +"But, Father, consider it practically. We want each other. There's +ever so much money, and nothing whatever in the way but sentiment. +Let's bury the past, Father." + +Soames shook his head. "Impossible!" + +"Besides," said Fleur gently, "you can't prevent us." + +"I don't suppose," said Soames, "that if left to myself I should +try to prevent you; I must put up with things, I know, to keep +your affection. But it's not I who control this matter. That's +what I want you to realise before it's too late. If you go on +thinking you can get your way, and encourage this feeling, the +blow will be much heavier when you find you can't." + +"Oh!" cried Fleur, "help me, Father; you CAN help me, you know." + +Soames made a startled movement of negation. + +"I?" he said bitterly. "Help? I am the impediment--the just cause +and impediment--isn't that the jargon? You have my blood in your +veins." + +He rose. + +"Well, the fat's in the fire. If you persist in your wilfulness +you'll have yourself to blame. Come! Don't be foolish, my child-- +my only child!" + +Fleur laid her forehead against his shoulder. + +All was in such turmoil within her. But no good to show it! No +good at all! She broke away from him, and went out into the +twilight, distraught, but unconvinced. All was indeterminate and +vague within her, like the shapes and shadows in the garden, +except--her will to have. A poplar pierced up into the dark-blue +sky and touched a white star there. The dew wetted her shoes, and +chilled her bare shoulders. She went down to the river bank, and +stood gazing at a moonstreak on the darkening water. Suddenly she +smelled tobacco smoke, and a white figure emerged as if created by +the moon. It was young Mont in flannels, standing in his boat. She +heard the tiny hiss of his cigarette extinguished in the water. + +"Fleur," came his voice, "don't be hard on a poor devil! I've been +waiting hours." + +"For what?" + +"Come in my boat!" + +"Not I." + +"Why not?" + +"I'm not a water-nymph." + +"Haven't you ANY romance in you? Don't be modern, Fleur!" + +He appeared on the path within a yard of her. + +"Go away!" + +"Fleur, I love you. Fleur!" + +Fleur uttered a short laugh. + +"Come again," she said, "when I haven't got my wish." + +"What is your wish?" + +"Ask another." + +"Fleur," said Mont, and his voice sounded strange, "don't mock me! +Even vivisected dogs are worth decent treatment before they're cut +up for good." + +Fleur shook her head; but her lips were trembling. + +"Well, you shouldn't make me jump. Give me a cigarette." + +Mont gave her one, lighted it, and another for himself. + +"I don't want to talk rot," he said, "but please imagine all the +rot that all the lovers that ever were have talked, and all my +special rot thrown in." + +"Thank you, I have imagined it. Good-night!" + +They stood for a moment facing each other in the shadow of an +acacia-tree with very moonlit blossoms, and the smoke from their +cigarettes mingled in the air between them. + +"Also ran: 'Michael Mont'?" he said. Fleur turned abruptly towards +the house. On the lawn she stopped to look back. Michael Mont was +whirling his arms above him; she could see them dashing at his +head, then waving at the moonlit blossoms of the acacia. His voice +just reached her. "Jolly--jolly!" Fleur shook herself. She +couldn't help him, she had too much trouble of her own! On the +verandah she stopped very suddenly again. Her mother was sitting +in the drawing-room at her writing bureau, quite alone. There was +nothing remarkable in the expression of her face except its utter +immobility. But she looked desolate! Fleur went up-stairs. At the +door of her room she paused. She could hear her father walking up +and down, up and down the picture-gallery. + +'Yes,' she thought, jolly! Oh, Jon!' + + + + + +X + +DECISION + + +When Fleur left him Jon stared at the Austrian. She was a thin +woman with a dark face and the concerned expression of one who has +watched every little good that life once had slip from her, one by +one. + +"No tea?" she said. + +Susceptible to the disappointment in her voice, Jon murmured: + +"No, really; thanks." + +"A lil cup--it ready. A lil cup and cigarette." + +Fleur was gone! Hours of remorse and indecision lay before him! +And with a heavy sense of disproportion he smiled, and said: + +"Well--thank you!" + +She brought in a little pot of tea with two cups, and a silver box +of cigarettes on a little tray. + +"Sugar? Miss Forsyte has much sugar--she buy my sugar, my friend's +sugar also. Miss Forsyte is a veree kind lady. I am happy to serve +her. You her brother?" + +"Yes," said Jon, beginning to puff the second cigarette of his +life. + +"Very young brother," said the Austrian, with a little anxious +smile, which reminded him of the wag of a dog's tail. + +"May I give you some?" he said. "And won't you sit down?" + +The Austrian shook her head. + +"Your father a very nice man--the most nice old man I ever see. +Miss Forsyte tell me all about him. Is he better?" + +Her words fell on Jon like a reproach. "Oh! I think he's all +right." + +"I like to see him again," said the Austrian, putting a hand on +her heart; "he have veree kind heart." + +"Yes," said Jon. And again her words seemed to him a reproach. + +"He never give no trouble to no one, and smile so gentle." + +"Yes! doesn't he?" + +"He look at Miss Forsyte so funny sometimes. I tell him all my +story; he so sympatisch. Your mother--she nice and well?" + +"Very." + +"He have her photograph on his dressing-table. Veree beautiful." + +Jon gulped down his tea. This woman, with her concerned face and +her reminding words, was like the first and second murderers. + +"Thank you," he said; "I must go now. May--may I leave this with +you?" + +He put a ten-shilling note on the tray with a doubting hand and +gained the door. He heard the Austrian gasp, and hurried out. He +had just time to catch his train, and all the way to Victoria +looked at every face that passed, as lovers will, hoping against +hope. On reaching Worthing he put his luggage into the local +train, and set out across the Downs for Wansdon, trying to walk +off his aching irresolution. So long as he went full bat, he could +enjoy the beauty of those green slopes, stopping now and again to +sprawl on the grass, admire the perfection of a wild rose, or +listen to a lark's song. But the war of motives within him was but +postponed--the longing for Fleur, and the hatred of deception. He +came to the old chalk-pit above Wansdon with his mind no more +made up than when he started. To see both sides of a question +vigorously was at once Jon's strength and weakness. He tramped in, +just as the first dinner-bell rang. His things had already been +brought up. He had a hurried bath and came down to find Holly +alone--Val had gone to Town and would not be back till the last +train. + +Since Val's advice to him to ask his sister what was the matter +between the two families, so much had happened--Fleur's +disclosure in the Green Park, her visit to Robin Hill, to-day's +meeting--that there seemed nothing to ask. He talked of Spain, his +sunstroke, Val's horses, their father's health. Holly startled him +by saying that she thought their father not at all well. She had +been twice to Robin Hill for the week-end. He had seemed fearfully +languid, sometimes even in pain, but had always refused to talk +about himself. + +"He's awfully dear and unselfish--don't you think, Jon?" + +Feeling far from dear and unselfish himself, Jon answered: +"Rather!" + +"I think, he's been a simply perfect father, so long as I can +remember." + +"Yes," answered Jon, very subdued. + +"He's never interfered, and he's always seemed to understand. I've +not forgotten how he let me go out to South Africa in the Boer War +when I was in love with Val." + +"That was before he married Mother, wasn't it?" said Jon suddenly. + +"Yes. Why?" + +"Oh! nothing. Only, wasn't she engaged to Fleur's father first?" + +Holly put down the spoon she was using, and raised her eyes. Her +stare was circumspect. What did the boy know? Enough to make it +better to tell him? She could not decide. He looked strained and +worried, altogether older, but that might be the sunstroke. + +"There WAS something," she said. "Of course we were out there, and +got no news of anything. "She could not take the risk. It was not +her secret. Besides, she was in the dark about his feelings now. +Before Spain she had made sure he was in love; but boys were boys; +that was seven weeks ago, and all Spain between. + +She saw that he knew she was putting him off, and added: + +"Have you heard anything of Fleur?" + +"Yes." + +His face told her more than the most elaborate explanations. He +had not forgotten! + +She said very quietly: "Fleur is awfully attractive, Jon, but you +know--Val and I don't really like her very much." + +"Why?" + +"We think she's got rather a 'having' nature." + +"'Having?' I don't know what you mean. She--she--" he pushed his +dessert plate away, got up, and went to the window. + +Holly, too, got up, and put her arm round his waist. + +"Don't be angry, Jon dear. We can't all see people in the same +light, can we? I believe each of us only has about one or two +people who can see the best that's in us, and bring it out. For +you I think it's your mother. I once saw her looking at a letter +of yours; it was wonderful to see her face. I think she's the most +beautiful woman I ever saw--Age doesn't seem to touch her." + +Jon's face softened, then again became tense. He recognised the +intention of those words. Everybody was against him and Fleur! It +all strengthened her appeal: + +"Make sure of me--marry me, Jon!" + +Here, where he had passed that wonderful week with her--the tug of +her enchantment, the ache in his heart increased with every minute +that she was not there to make the room, the garden, the very air +magical. Would he ever be able to live down here, not seeing her? +And he closed up utterly, going early to bed. It would not make +him healthy, wealthy, and wise, but it closeted him with memory of +Fleur in her fancy frock. He heard Val's arrival--the Ford +discharging cargo, then the stillness of the summer night stole +back--with only the bleating of very distant sheep, and a night- +jar's harsh purring. He leaned far out. Cold moon--warm air--the +Downs like silver! Small wings, a stream bubbling, the rambler +roses! God-how empty all of it without her! In the Bible it was +written: Thou shalt leave father and mother and cleave to--Fleur! + +Let him have pluck, and go and tell them! They couldn't stop him +marrying her--they wouldn't want to stop him when they knew how he +felt. Yes! He would go! Bold and open--Fleur was wrong! + +The night-jar ceased, the sheep were silent; the only sound in the +darkness was the bubbling of the stream. And Jon in his bed slept, +freed from the worst of life's evils--indecision. + + + + + +XI + +TIMOTHY PROPHESIES + + +On the day of the cancelled meeting at the National Gallery, began +the second anniversary of the resurrection of England's pride and +glory--or, more shortly, the top hat. "Lord's"--that festival +which the war had driven from the field--raised its light and dark +blue flags for the second time, displaying almost every feature of +a glorious past. Here, in the luncheon interval, were all species +of female and one species of male hat, protecting the multiple +types of face associated with "the classes" The observing Forsyte +might discern in the free or unconsidered seats a certain number +of the squash-hatted, but they hardly ventured on the grass; the +old school--or schools--could still rejoice that the proletariat +was not yet paying the necessary half-crown. Here was still a +close borough, the only one left on a large scale--for the papers +were about to estimate the attendance at ten thousand. And the ten +thousand, all animated by one hope, were asking each other one +question: "Where are you lunching? "Something wonderfully +uplifting and reassuring in that query and the sight of so many +people like themselves voicing it! What reserve power in the +British realm--enough pigeons, lobsters, lamb, salmon mayonnaise, +strawberries, and bottles of champagne, to feed the lot! No +miracle in prospect--no case of seven loaves and a few fishes-- +faith rested on surer foundations. Six thousand top hats, four +thousand parasols would be doffed and furled, ten thousand mouths +all speaking the same English would be filled. There was life in +the old dog yet! Tradition! And again Tradition! How strong and +how elastic! Wars might rage, taxation prey, Trades Unions take +toll, and Europe perish of starvation; but the ten thousand would +be fed; and, within their ring fence, stroll upon green turf, wear +their top hats, and meet--themselves. The heart was sound, the +pulse still regular. E-ton! E-ton! Har-r-o-o-o-w! + +Among the many Forsytes present, on a hunting-ground theirs, by +personal prescriptive right, or proxy, was Soames, with his wife +and daughter. He had not been at either school, he took no +interest in cricket, but he wanted Fleur to show her frock, and he +wanted to wear his top hat--parade it again in peace and plenty +among his peers. He walked sedately with Fleur between him and +Annette. No women equalled them, so far as he could see. They +could walk, and hold themselves up; there was substance in their +good looks; the modern woman had no build, no chest, no anything! +He remembered suddenly with what intoxication of pride he had +walked round with Irene in the first years of his first marriage. +And how they used to lunch on the drag which his mother WOULD make +his father have, because it was so "chic"--all drags and carriages +in those days, not these lumbering great Stands! And how +consistently Montague Dartie had drunk too much. He supposed that +people drank too much still, but there was not the scope for it +there used to be. He remembered George Forsyte--whose brothers +Roger and Eustace had been at Harrow and Eton--towering up on the +top of the drag waving a light-blue flag with one hand and a dark- +blue flag with the other, and shouting: "Etroow--Harrton!" just +when everybody was silent, like the buffoon he had always been; +and Eustace got up to the nines below, too dandified to wear any +colour or take any notice. H'm! Old days, and Irene in grey silk +shot with palest green. He looked, sideways, at Fleur's face. +Rather colourless--no light, no eagerness! That love affair was +preying on her--a bad business! He looked beyond, at his wife's +face, rather more touched up than usual, a little disdainful--not +that she had any business to disdain, so far as he could see. She +was taking Profond's defection with curious quietude; or was his +"small" voyage just a blind? If so, he should refuse to see it! +After promenading round the pitch and in front of the pavilion, +they sought Winifred's table in the Bedouin Club tent. This Club-- +a new "cock and hen"--had been founded in the interests of travel, +and of a gentleman with an old Scottish name, whose father had +somewhat strangely been called Levi. Winifred had joined, not +because she had travelled, but because instinct told her that a +Club with such a name and such a founder was bound to go far; if +one didn't join at once one might never have the chance. Its tent, +with a text from the Koran on an orange ground, and a small green +camel embroidered over the entrance, was the most striking on the +ground. Outside it they found Jack Cardigan in a dark-blue tie (he +had once played for Harrow), batting with a Malacca cane to show +how that fellow ought to have hit that ball. He piloted them in. +Assembled in Winifred's corner were Imogen, Benedict with his +young wife, Val Dartie without Holly, Maud and her husband, and, +after Soames and his two were seated, one empty place. + +"I'm expecting Prosper," said Winifred, "but he's so busy with his +yacht." + +Soames stole a glance. No movement in his wife's face! Whether +that fellow were coming or not, she evidently knew all about it. +It did not escape him that Fleur, too, looked at her mother. If +Annette didn't respect his feelings, she might think of Fleur! The +conversation, very desultory, was syncopated by Jack Cardigan +talking about "mid-off." He cited all the "great mid-offs" from +the beginning of time, as if they had been a definite racial +entity in the composition of the British people. Soames had +finished his lobster, and was beginning on pigeon-pie, when he +heard the words: "I'm a small bit late, Mrs. Dartie," and saw that +there was no longer any empty place. THAT FELLOW was sitting +between Annette and Imogen. Soames ate steadily on, with an +occasional word to Maud and Winifred. Conversation buzzed around +him. He heard the voice of Profond say: + +"I think you're mistaken, Mrs. Forsyde I'll--I'll bet Miss Forsyde +agrees with me." + +"In what?" came Fleur's clear tones across the table. + +"I was sayin', young gurls are much the same as they always were-- +there's very small difference." + +"Do you know so much about them?" + +That sharp reply caught the ears of all, and Soames moved uneasily +on his thin green chair. + +"Well, I don't know, I think they want their own small way, and I +think they always did." + +"Indeed!" + +"Oh, but--Prosper," Winifred interjected comfortably, "the girls +in the streets--the girls who've been in munitions, the little +flappers in the shops; their manners now really quite hit you in +the eye." + +At the word "hit" Jack Cardigan stopped his disquisition; and in +the silence Monsieur Profond said: + +"It was inside before, now it's outside; that's all." + +"But their morals!" cried Imogen. + +"Just as moral as they ever were, Mrs. Cardigan, but they've got +more opportunity." + +The saying, so cryptically cynical, received a little laugh from +Imogen, a slight opening of Jack Cardigan's mouth, and another +creak from Soames' chair. + +Winifred said: "That's too bad, Prosper." + +"What do you say, Mrs. Forsyde; don't you think human nature's +always the same?" + +Soames subdued a sudden longing to get up and kick the fellow. He +heard his wife reply: + +"Human nature is not the same in England as anywhere else." That +was her confounded mockery! + +"Well, I don't know much about this small country"--'No, thank +God!' thought Soames--"but I should say the pot was boilin' under +the lid everywhere. We all want pleasure, and we always did." + +Damn the fellow! His cynicism was outrageous! + +When lunch was over they broke up into couples for the digestive +promenade. Too proud to notice, Soames knew perfectly that Annette +and that fellow had gone prowling round together. Fleur was with +Val; she had chosen him, no doubt, because he knew that boy. He +himself had Winifred for partner. They walked in the bright, +circling stream, a little flushed and sated, till Winifred sighed: + +"I wish we were back forty years, old boy!" + +Before the eyes of her spirit an interminable procession of her +own "Lord's" frocks was passing, paid for with the money of her +father, to save a recurrent crisis. "It's been very amusing, after +all. Sometimes I even wish Monty was back. What do you think of +people nowadays, Soames?" + +"Precious little style. The thing began to go to pieces with +bicycles and motor-cars; the war has finished it." + +"I wonder what's coming?" said Winifred in a voice dreamy from +pigeon-pie. "I'm not at all sure we shan't go back to crinolines +and pegtops. Look at that dress!" Soames shook his head. + +"There's money, but no faith in things. We don't lay by for the +future. These youngsters--it's all a short life and a merry one +with them." + +"There's a hat!" said Winifred. "I don't know--when you come to +think of the people killed and all that in the war, it's rather +wonderful, I think. There's no other country--Prosper says the +rest are all bankrupt, except America; and of course her men +always took their style in dress from us." + +"Is that chap," said Soames, "really going to the South Seas?" + +"Oh, one never knows where Prosper's going!" + +"HE'S a sign of the times," muttered Soames, "if you like." + +Winifred's hand gripped his arm. + +"Don't turn your head," she said in a low voice, "but look to your +right in the front row of the Stand." + +Soames looked as best he could under that limitation. A man in a +grey top hat, grey-bearded, with thin brown, folded cheeks, and a +certain elegance of posture, sat there with a woman in a lawn- +coloured frock, whose dark eyes were fixed on himself. Soames +looked quickly at his feet. How funnily feet moved, one after the +other like that! Winifred's voice said in his ear: + +"Jolyon looks very ill, but he always had style. SHE doesn't +change--except her hair." + +"Why did you tell Fleur about that business?" + +"I didn't; she picked it up. I always knew she would." + +"Well, it's a mess. She's set her heart upon their boy." + +"The little wretch," murmured Winifred. "She tried to take me in +about that. What shall you do, Soames?" + +"Be guided by events." + +They moved on, silent, in the almost solid crowd. + +"Really," said Winifred suddenly; "it almost seems like Fate. Only +that's so old-fashioned. Look! There are George and Eustace!" + +George Forsyte's lofty bulk had halted before them. + +"Hallo, Soames!" he said. "Just met Profond and your wife. You'll +catch 'em if you put on steam. Did you ever go to see old +Timothy?" + +Soames nodded, and the streams forced them apart. + +"I always liked old George," said Winifred. "He's so droll." + +"I never did," said Soames. "Where's your seat? I shall go to +mine. Fleur may be back there." + +Having seen Winifred to her seat, he regained his own, conscious +of small, white, distant figures running, the click of the bat, +the cheers and counter-cheers. No Fleur, and no Annette! You could +expect nothing of women nowadays! They had the vote. They were +"emancipated," and much good it was doing them. So Winifred would +go back, would she, and put up with Dartie all over again? To have +the past once more--to be sitting here as he had sat in '83 and +'84, before he was certain that his marriage with Irene had gone +all wrong, before her antagonism had become so glaring that with +the best will in the world he could not overlook it. The sight of +her with that fellow had brought all memory back. Even now he +could not understand why she had been so impracticable. She could +love other men; she had it in her! To himself, the one person she +ought to have loved, she had chosen to refuse her heart. It seemed +to him, fantastically, as he looked back, that all this modern +relaxation of marriage--though its forms and laws were the same as +when he married her--that all this modern looseness had come out +of her revolt; it seemed to him, fantastically, that she had +started it, till all decent ownership of anything had gone, or was +on the point of going. All came from her! And now--a pretty state +of things! Homes! How could you have them without mutual +ownership? Not that he had ever had a real home! But had that been +his fault? He had done his best. And his reward--those two sitting +in that Stand! And this affair of Fleur's! + +And overcome by loneliness he thought: 'Shan't wait any longer! +They must find their own way back to the hotel--if they mean to +come!' Hailing a cab outside the ground, he said: + +"Drive me to the Bayswater Road." His old aunts had never failed +him. To them he had meant an everwelcome visitor. Though they were +gone, there, still, was Timothy! + +Smither was standing in the open doorway. + +"Mr. Soames! I was just taking the air. Cook will be so pleased." + +"How is Mr. Timothy?" + +"Not himself at all these last few days, sir; he's been talking a +great deal. Only this morning he was saying: 'My brother James, +he's getting old.' His mind wanders, Mr. Soames, and then he will +talk of them. He troubles about their investments. The other day +he said: 'There's my brother Jolyon won't look at Consols'--he +seemed quite down about it. Come in, Mr. Soames, come in! It's +such a pleasant change!" + +"Well," said Soames, "just for a few minutes." + +"No," murmured Smither in the hall, where the air had the singular +freshness of the outside day, "we haven't been very satisfied with +him, not all this week. He's always been one to leave a titbit to +the end; but ever since Monday he's been eating it first. If you +notice a dog, Mr. Soames, at its dinner, it eats the meat first. +We've always thought it such a good sign of Mr. Timothy at his age +to leave it to the last, but now he seems to have lost all his +self-control; and, of course, it makes him leave the rest. The +doctor doesn't make anything of it, but"--Smither shook her head +--"he seems to think he's got to eat it first, in case he shouldn't +get to it. That and his talking makes us anxious." + +"Has he said anything important?" + +"I shouldn't like to say that, Mr. Soames; but he's turned against +his Will. He gets quite pettish--and after having had it out every +morning for years, it does seem funny. He said the other day: +'They want my money.' It gave me such a turn, because, as I said +to him, nobody wants his money, I'm sure. And it does seem a pity +he should be thinking about money at his time of life. I took my +courage in my 'ands. 'You know, Mr. Timothy,' I said, 'my dear +mistress'--that's Miss Forsyte, Mr. Soames, Miss Ann that trained +me--'SHE never thought about money,' I said, 'it was all CHARACTER +with her.' He looked at me, I can't tell you how funny, and he +said quite dry: 'Nobody wants my character.' Think of his saying a +thing like that! But sometimes he'll say something as sharp and +sensible as anything." + +Soames, who had been staring at an old print by the hat-rack, +thinking, 'That's got value!' murmured: "I'll go up and see him, +Smither." + +"Cook's with him," answered Smither above her corsets; "she will +be pleased to see you." + +He mounted slowly, with the thought: 'Shan't care to live to be +that age.' + +On the second floor, he paused, and tapped. The door was opened, +and he saw the round homely face of a woman about sixty. + +"Mr. Soames!" she said: "Why! Mr. Soames!" + +Soames nodded. "All right, Cook!" and entered. + +Timothy was propped up in bed, with his hands joined before his +chest, and his eyes fixed on the ceiling, where a fly was standing +upside down. Soames stood at the foot of the bed, facing him. + +"Uncle Timothy," he said, raising his voice; "Uncle Timothy!" + +Timothy's eyes left the fly, and levelled themselves on his +visitor. Soames could see his pale tongue passing over his darkish +lips. + +"Uncle Timothy," he said again, "is there anything I can do for +you? Is there anything you'd like to say?" + +"Ha!" said Timothy. + +"I've come to look you up and see that everything's all right." + +Timothy nodded. He seemed trying to get used to the apparition +before him. + +"Have you got everything you want?" + +"No," said Timothy. + +"Can I get you anything?" + +"No," said Timothy. + +"I'm Soames, you know; your nephew, Soames Forsyte. Your brother +James' son." + +Timothy nodded. + +"I shall be delighted to do anything I can for you." + +Timothy beckoned. Soames went close to him. + +"You--" said Timothy in a voice which seemed to have outlived +tone, "you tell them all from me--you tell them all--" and his +finger tapped on Soames' arm, "to hold on--hold on--Consols are +goin' up," and he nodded thrice. + +"All right!" said Soames; "I will." + +"Yes," said Timothy, and, fixing his eyes again on the ceiling, he +added: "That fly!" + +Strangely moved, Soames looked at the Cook's pleasant fattish +face, all little puckers from staring at fires. + +"That'll do him a world of good, sir," she said. + +A mutter came from Timothy, but he was clearly speaking to +himself, and Soames went out with the cook. + +"I wish I could make you a pink cream, Mr. Soames, like in old +days; you did so relish them. Good-bye, sir; it HAS been a +pleasure." + +"Take care of him, Cook, he is old." + +And, shaking her crumpled hand, he went down-stairs. Smither was +still taking the air in the doorway. + +"What do you think of him, Mr. Soames?" + +"H'm!" Soames murmured: "He's lost touch." + +"Yes," said Smither, "I was afraid you'd think that, coming fresh +out of the world to see him like." + +"Smither," said Soames, "we're all indebted to you." + +"Oh, no, Mr. Soames, don't say that! It's a pleasure--he's such a +wonderful man." + +"Well, good-bye!" said Soames, and got into his taxi. + +'Going up!' he thought; 'going up!' + +Reaching the hotel at Knightsbridge he went to their sitting-room, +and rang for tea. Neither of them were in. And again that sense of +loneliness came over him. These hotels! What monstrous great +places they were now! He could remember when there was nothing +bigger than Long's or Brown's, Morley's or the Tavistock, and the +heads that were shaken over the Langham and the Grand. Hotels and +Clubs--Clubs and Hotels; no end to them now! And Soames, who had +just been watching at Lord's a miracle of tradition and +continuity, fell into reverie over the changes in that London +where he had been born five-and-sixty years before. Whether +Consols were going up or not, London had become a terrific +property. No such property in the world, unless it were New York! +There was a lot of hysteria in the papers nowadays; but any one +who, like himself, could remember London sixty years ago, and see +it now, realised the fecundity and elasticity of wealth. They had +only to keep their heads, and go at it steadily. Why! he +remembered cobble-stones, and stinking straw on the floor of your +cab. And old Timothy--what could HE not tell them, if he had kept +his memory! Things were unsettled, people in a funk or in a hurry, +but here were London and the Thames, and out there the British +Empire, and the ends of the earth. "Consols are goin' up!" He +shouldn't be a bit surprised. It was the breed that counted. And +all that was bull-dogged in Soames stared for a moment out of his +grey eyes, till diverted by the print of a Victorian picture on +the walls. The hotel had bought three dozen of that little lot! +The old hunting or "Rake's Progress" prints in the old inns were +worth looking at--but this sentimental stuff--well, Victorianism +had gone! "Tell them to hold on!" old Timothy had said. But to +what were they to hold on in this modern welter of the "democratic +principle"? Why, even privacy was threatened! And at the thought +that privacy might perish, Soames pushed back his teacup and went +to the window. Fancy owning no more of Nature than the crowd out +there owned of the flowers and trees and waters of Hyde Park! No, +no! Private possession underlay everything worth having. The world +had slipped its sanity a bit, as dogs now and again at full moon +slipped theirs and went off for a night's rabbiting; but the +world, like the dog, knew where its bread was buttered and its bed +warm, and would come back sure enough to the only home worth +having--to private ownership. The world was in its second +childhood for the moment, like old Timothy--eating its titbit +first! + +He heard a sound behind him, and saw that his wife and daughter +had come in. + +"So you're back!" he said. + +Fleur did not answer; she stood for a moment looking at him and +her mother, then passed into her bedroom. Annette poured herself +out a cup of tea. + +"I am going to Paris, to my mother, Soames." + +"Oh! To your mother?" + +"Yes." + +"For how long?" + +"I do not know." + +"And when are you going?" + +"On Monday." + +Was she really going to her mother? Odd, how indifferent he felt! +Odd, how clearly she had perceived the indifference he would feel +so long as there was no scandal. And suddenly between her and +himself he saw distinctly the face he had seen that afternoon-- +Irene's. + +"Will you want money?" + +"Thank you; I have enough." + +"Very well. Let us know when you are coming back." + +Annette put down the cake she was fingering, and, looking up +through darkened lashes, said: + +"Shall I give Maman any message?" + +"My regards." + +Annette stretched herself, her hands on her waist, and said in +French: + +"What luck that you have never loved me, Soames!" Then rising, she +too left the room. Soames was glad she had spoken it in French--it +seemed to require no dealing with. Again that other face--pale, +dark-eyed, beautiful still! And there stirred far down within him +the ghost of warmth, as from sparks lingering beneath a mound of +flaky ash. And Fleur infatuated with her boy! Queer chance! Yet, +was there such a thing as chance? A man went down a street, a +brick fell on his head. Ah! that was chance, no doubt. But this! +"Inherited," his girl had said. She--she was "holding on!" + + + + + +PART III + + +I + +OLD JOLYON WALKS + + +Twofold impulse had made Jolyon say to his wife at breakfast: +"Let's go up to Lord's!" + +"Wanted"--something to abate the anxiety in which those two had +lived during the sixty hours since Jon had brought Fleur down. +"Wanted"--too, that which might assuage the pangs of memory in one +who knew he might lose them any day! + +Fifty-eight years ago Jolyon had become an Eton boy, for old +Jolyon's whim had been that he should be canonised at the greatest +possible expense. Year after year he had gone to Lord's from +Stanhope Gate with a father whose youth in the eighteen-twenties +had been passed without polish in the game of cricket. Old Jolyon +would speak quite openly of swipes, full tosses, half and three- +quarter balls; and young Jolyon with the guileless snobbery of +youth had trembled lest his sire should be overheard. Only in this +supreme matter of cricket he had been nervous, for his father--in +Crimean whiskers then--had ever impressed him as the beau ideal. +Though never canonised himself, old Jolyon's natural +fastidiousness and balance had saved him from the errors of the +vulgar. How delicious, after howling in a top hat and a sweltering +heat, to go home with his father in a hansom cab, bathe, dress, +and forth to the "Disunion" Club, to dine off whitebait, cutlets, +and a tart, and go--two "swells," old and young, in lavender kid +gloves--to the opera or play. And on Sunday, when the match was +over, and his top hat duly broken, down with his father in a +special hansom to the "Crown and Sceptre," and the terrace above +the river--the golden sixties when the world was simple, dandies +glamorous, Democracy not born, and the books of Whyte Melville +coming thick and fast. + +A generation later, with his own boy, Jolly, Harrow--buttonholed +with cornflowers--by old Jolyon's whim his grandson had been +canonised at a trifle less expense--again Jolyon had experienced +the heat and counter-passions of the day, and come back to the +cool and the strawberry beds of Robin Hill, and billiards after +dinner, his boy making the most heart-breaking flukes and trying +to seem languid and grown-up. Those two days each year he and his +son had been alone together in the world, one on each side--and +Democracy just born! + +And so, he had unearthed a grey top hat, borrowed a tiny bit of +light-blue ribbon from Irene, and gingerly, keeping cool, by car +and train and taxi, had reached Lord's Ground. There, beside her +in a lawn-coloured frock with narrow black edges, he had watched +the game, and felt the old thrill stir within him. + +When Soames passed, the day was spoiled, and Irene's face +distorted by compression of the lips. No good to go on sitting +here with Soames or perhaps his daughter recurring in front of +them, like decimals. And he said: + +"Well, dear, if you've had enough--let's go!" + +That evening Jolyon felt exhausted. Not wanting her to see him +thus, he waited till she had begun to play, and stole off to the +little study. He opened the long window for air, and the door, +that he might still hear her music drifting in; and, settled in +his father's old armchair, closed his eyes, with his head against +the worn brown leather. Like that passage of the Cesar Franck +Sonata--so had been his life with her, a divine third movement. +And now this business of Jon's--this bad business! Drifted to the +edge of consciousness, he hardly knew if it were in sleep that he +smelled the scent of a cigar, and seemed to see a shape in the +blackness before his closed eyes. That shape formed, went, and +formed again; as if in the very chair where he himself was +sitting, he saw his father, black-coated, with knees crossed, +glasses balanced between thumb and finger; saw the big white +moustaches, and the deep eyes looking up below a dome of forehead, +seeming to search his own; seeming to speak. "Are you facing it, +Jo? It's for you to decide. She's only a woman!" How well he knew +his father in that phrase; how all the Victorian Age came up with +it!--And his answer "No, I've funked it--funked hurting her and +Jon and myself. I've got a heart; I've funked it." But the old +eyes, so much older, so much younger than his own, kept at it: +"It's your wife, your son, your past. Tackle it, my boy!" Was it a +message from walking spirit; or but the instinct of his sire +living on within him? And again came that scent of cigar smoke-- +from the old saturated leather. Well! he would tackle it, write to +Jon, and put the whole thing down in black and white! And suddenly +he breathed with difficulty, with a sense of suffocation, as if +his heart were swollen. He got up and went out into the air. +Orion's Belt was very bright. He passed along the terrace round +the corner of the house, till, through the window of the music- +room, he could see Irene at the piano, with lamplight falling on +her powdery hair; withdrawn into herself she seemed, her dark eyes +staring straight before her, her hands idle. Jolyon saw her raise +those hands and clasp them over her breast. 'It's Jon, with her,' +he thought; 'all Jon! I'm dying out of her--it's natural!' + +And, careful not to be seen, he stole back. + +Next day, after a bad night, he sat down to his task. He wrote +with difficulty and many erasures. + +"MY DEAREST BOY, + +"You are old enough to understand how very difficult it is for +elders to give themselves away to their young. Especially when-- +like your mother and myself, though I shall never think of her as +anything but young--their hearts are altogether set on him to whom +they must confess. I cannot say we are conscious of having sinned +exactly--people in real life very seldom are, I believe, but most +persons would say we had, and at all events our conduct, righteous +or not, has found us out. The truth is, my dear, we both have +pasts, which it is now my task to make known to you, because they +so grievously and deeply affect your future. Many, very many years +ago, as far back indeed as 1883, when she was only twenty, your +mother had the great and lasting misfortune to make an unhappy +marriage--no, not with me, Jon. Without money of her own, and with +only a stepmother--closely related to Jezebel--she was very +unhappy in her home life. IT WAS FLEUR'S FATHER THAT SHE MARRIED, +my cousin Soames Forsyte. He had pursued her very tenaciously and +to do him justice was deeply in love with her. Within a week she +knew the fearful mistake she had made. It was not his fault; it +was her error of judgment--her misfortune." + +So far Jolyon had kept some semblance of irony, but now his +subject carried him away. + +"Jon, I want to explain to you if I can--and it's very hard--how +it is that an unhappy marriage such as this can so easily come +about. You will of course say: 'If she didn't really love him how +could she ever have married him?' You would be quite right if it +were not for one or two rather terrible considerations. From this +initial mistake of hers all the subsequent trouble, sorrow, and +tragedy have come, and so I must make it clear to you if I can. +You see, Jon, in those days and even to this day--indeed, I don't +see, for all the talk of enlightenment, how it can well be +otherwise--most girls are married ignorant of the sexual side of +life. Even if they know what it means they have not EXPERIENCED +it. That's the crux. It is this actual lack of experience, +whatever verbal knowledge they have, which makes all the +difference and all the trouble. In a vast number of marriages--and +your mother's was one--girls are not and CANNOT be certain whether +they love the man they marry or not; they do not know until after +that act of union which makes the reality of marriage. Now, in +many, perhaps in most doubtful cases, this act cements and +strengthens the attachment, but in other cases, and your mother's +was one, it is a revelation of mistake, a destruction of such +attraction as there was. There is nothing more tragic in a woman's +life than such a revelation, growing daily, nightly clearer. +Coarse-grained and unthinking people are apt to laugh at such a +mistake, and say 'what a fuss about nothing!' Narrow and self- +righteous people, only capable of judging the lives of others by +their own, are apt to condemn those who make this tragic error, to +condemn them for life to the dungeons they have made for +themselves. You know the expression: 'She has made her bed, she +must lie on it!' It is a hard-mouthed saying, quite unworthy of a +gentleman or lady in the best sense of those words; and I can use +no stronger condemnation. I have not been what is called a moral +man, but I wish to use no words to you, my dear, which will make +you think lightly of ties or contracts into which you enter. +Heaven forbid! But with the experience of a life behind me I do +say that those who condemn the victims of these tragic mistakes, +condemn them and hold out no hands to help them, are inhuman or +rather they would be if they had the understanding to know what +they are doing. But they haven't! Let them go! They are as much +anathema to me as I, no doubt, am to them. I have had to say all +this, because I am going to put you into a position to judge your +mother, and you are very young, without experience of what life +is. To go on with the story. After three years of effort to subdue +her shrinking--I was going to say her loathing and it's not too +strong a word, for shrinking soon becomes loathing under such +circumstances--three years of what to a sensitive, beauty-loving +nature like your mother's, Jon, was torment, she met a young man +who fell in love with her. He was the architect of this very house +that we live in now, he was building it for her and Fleur's father +to live in, a new prison to hold her, in place of the one she +inhabited with him in London. Perhaps that fact played some part +in what came of it. But in any case she, too, fell in love with +him. I know it's not necessary to explain to you that one does not +precisely choose with whom one will fall in love. It comes. Very +well! It came. I can imagine--though she never said much to me +about it--the struggle that then took place in her, because, Jon, +she was brought up strictly and was not light in her ideas--not at +all. However, this was an overwhelming feeling, and it came to +pass that they loved in deed as well as in thought. Then came a +fearful tragedy. I must tell you of it because if I don't you will +never understand the real situation that you have now to face. The +man whom she had married--Soames Forsyte, the father of Fleur--one +night, at the height of her passion for this young man, forcibly +reasserted his rights over her. The next day she met her lover and +told him of it. Whether he committed suicide or whether he was +accidentally run over in his distraction, we never knew; but so it +was. Think of your mother as she was that evening when she heard +of his death. I happened to see her. Your grand-father sent me to +help her if I could. I only just saw her, before the door was shut +against me by her husband. But I have never forgotten her face, I +can see it now. I was not in love with her then, nor for twelve +years after, but I have never forgotten. My dear boy--it is not +easy to write like this. But you see, I must. Your mother is +wrapped up in you, utterly, devotedly. I don't wish to write +harshly of Soames Forsyte. I don't think harshly of him. I have +long been sorry for him; perhaps I was sorry even then. As the +world judges she was in error, he was within his rights. He loved +her--in his way. SHE WAS HIS PROPERTY. That is the view he holds +of life--of human feelings and hearts--property. It's not his +fault--so was he born! To me it is a view that has always been +abhorrent--so was I born! Knowing you as I do, I feel it cannot be +otherwise than abhorrent to you. Let me go on with the story. Your +mother fled from his house that night; for twelve years she lived +quietly alone without companionship of any sort, until, in 1899 +her husband--you see, he was still her husband, for he did not +attempt to divorce her, and she of course had no right to divorce +him, became conscious, it seems, of the want of children, and +commenced a long attempt to induce her to go back to him and give +him a child. I was her trustee then, under your grandfather's +Will, and I watched this going on. While watching, I became +devotedly attached to her. His pressure increased, till one day +she came to me here and practically put herself under my +protection. Her husband, who was kept informed of all her +movements, attempted to force us apart by bringing a divorce suit, +or at all events by threatening one; anyway our names were +publicly joined. That decided us, and we became united in fact. +She was divorced, married me, and you were born. We have lived in +perfect happiness, at least I have, and I believe your mother +also. Soames, soon after the divorce, married Fleur's mother, and +she was born. That is the story, Jon. I have told it you, because +by the affection which we see you have formed for this man's +daughter you are blindly moving towards what must utterly destroy +your mother's happiness, if not your own. I don't wish to speak of +myself, because at my age there's no use supposing I shall cumber +the ground much longer, besides, what I should suffer would be +mainly on her account, and on yours. But what I want you to +realise is that feelings of horror and aversion such as those can +never be buried or forgotten. They are alive in her to-day. Only +yesterday at Lord's we happened to see Soames Forsyte. Her face, +if you had seen it, would have convinced you. The idea that you +should marry his daughter is a nightmare to her, Jon. I have +nothing to say against Fleur save that she IS his daughter. But +your children, if you married her, would be the grandchildren of +Soames, as much as of your mother, of a man who once owned your +mother as a man might own a slave. Think what that would mean. By +such a marriage you enter the camp which held your mother prisoner +and wherein she ate her heart out. You are just on the threshold +of life, you have only known this girl two months, and however +deeply you think you love her, I appeal to you to break it off at +once. Don't give your mother this rankling pain and humiliation +during the rest of her life. Young though she will always seem to +me, she is fifty-seven. Except for us two she has no one in the +world. She will soon have only you. Pluck up your spirit, Jon, and +break away. Don't put this cloud and barrier between you. Don't +break her heart! Bless you, my dear boy, and again forgive me for +all the pain this letter must bring you--we tried to spare it you, +but Spain--it seems--was no good. + +Ever your devoted father + +JOLYON FORSYTE." + +Having finished his confession, Jolyon sat with a thin cheek on +his hand, re-reading. There were things in it which hurt him so +much, when he thought of Jon reading them--that he nearly tore the +letter up. To speak of such things at all to a boy--his own boy-- +to speak of them in relation to his own wife and the boy's own +mother, seemed dreadful to the reticence of his Forsyte soul. And +yet without speaking of them how make Jon understand the reality, +the deep cleavage, the ineffaceable scar? Without them, how +justify this stifling of the boy's love? He might just as well not +write at all! + +He folded the confession, and put it in his pocket. It was--thank +heaven!--Saturday; he had till Sunday evening to think it over; +for even if posted now it could not reach Jon till Monday. He felt +a curious relief at this delay, and at the fact that, whether sent +or not, it was written. + +In the rose garden, which had taken the place of the old fernery, +he could see Irene snipping and pruning, with a little basket on +her arm. She was never idle, it seemed to him, and he envied her +now that he himself was idle nearly all his time. He went down to +her. She held up a stained glove and smiled. A piece of lace tied +under her chin concealed her hair, and her oval face with its +still dark brows looked very young. + +"The green fly are awful this year, and yet it's cold. You look +tired, Jolyon." + +Jolyon took the confession from his pocket. "I've been writing +this. I think you ought to see it." + +"To Jon?" Her whole face had changed, in that instant, becoming +almost haggard. + +"Yes; the murder's out." + +He gave it her, and walked away among the roses. Presently, seeing +that she had finished reading and was standing quite still with +the sheets of the letter against her skirt, he came back to her. + +"Well?" + +"It's wonderfully put. I don't see how it could be put better. +Thank you, dear." + +"Is there anything you would like left out?" + +She shook her head. + +"No; he must know all, if he's to understand." + +"That's what I thought, but I hate it like the devil!" + +He had the feeling that he hated it more than she--to him sex was +so much easier to mention between man and woman than between man +and man; and she had always been more natural and frank, not +deeply secretive like his Forsyte self. + +"I wonder if he will understand, even now, Jolyon? He's so young; +and he shrinks from the physical." + +"He gets that shrinking from my father, he was as fastidious as a +girl in all such matters. Would it be better to rewrite the whole +thing, and just say you hated Soames?" + +Irene shook her head. + +"Hate's only a word. It conveys nothing. No, better as it is." + +"Very well. It shall go to-morrow." + + + + + +II + +CONFESSION + + +Late that same afternoon, Jolyon had a nap in the old armchair. +Face down on his knee was La Rotisserie de la Reine Pedaugue, and +just before he fell asleep he had been thinking: 'As a people +shall we ever really like the French? Will they ever really like +us?' He himself had always liked the French, feeling at home with +their wit, their taste, their cooking. Irene and he had paid many +visits to France before the war, when Jon had been at his private +school. His romance with her had begun in Paris--his last and most +enduring romance. But the French--no Englishman could like them +who could not see them in some sort with the detached aesthetic +eye! And with that melancholy conclusion he had nodded off. + +When he woke he saw Jon standing between him and the window. The +boy had evidently come in from the garden and was waiting for him +to wake. Jolyon smiled, still half asleep. How nice the chap +looked-sensitive, affectionate, straight! Then his heart gave a +nasty jump; and a quaking sensation overcame him. That confession! +He controlled himself with an effort. "Why, Jon, where did you +spring from?" + +Jon bent over and kissed his forehead. + +Only then he noticed the look on the boy's face. + +"I came home to tell you something, Dad." + +With all his might Jolyon tried to get the better of the jumping, +gurgling sensations within his chest. + +"Well, sit down, old man. Have you seen your mother?" + +"No." The boy's flushed look gave place to pallor; he sat down on +the arm of the old chair, as, in old days, Jolyon himself used to +sit beside his own father, installed in its recesses. Right up to +the time of the rupture in their relations he had been wont to +perch there--had he now reached such a moment with his own son? +All his life he had hated scenes like poison, avoided rows, gone +on his own way quietly and let others go on theirs. But now--it +seemed--at the very end of things, he had a scene before him more +painful than any he had avoided. He drew a visor down over his +emotion, and waited for his son to speak. + +"Father," said Jon slowly, "Fleur and I are engaged." + +'Exactly!' thought Jolyon, breathing with difficulty. + +"I know that you and Mother don't like the idea. Fleur says that +Mother was engaged to her father before you married her. Of course +I don't know what happened, but it must be ages ago. I'm devoted +to her, Dad, and she says she is to me." + +Jolyon uttered a queer sound, half laugh, half groan. + +"You are nineteen, Jon, and I am seventy-two. How are we to +understand each other in a matter like this, eh?" + +"You love Mother, Dad; you must know what we feel. It isn't fair +to us to let old things spoil our happiness, is it?" + +Brought face to face with his confession, Jolyon resolved to do +without it if by any means he could. He laid his hand on the boy's +arm. + +"Look, Jon! I might put you off with talk about your both being +too young and not knowing your own minds, and all that, but you +wouldn't listen; besides, it doesn't meet the case--Youth, +unfortunately, cures itself. You talk lightly about 'old things +like that,' knowing nothing--as you say truly--of what happened. +Now, have I ever given you reason to doubt my love for you, or my +word?" + +At a less anxious moment he might have been amused by the conflict +his words aroused--the boy's eager clasp, to reassure him on these +points, the dread on his face of what that reassurance would bring +forth; but he could only feel grateful for the squeeze. + +"Very well, you can believe what I tell you. If you don't give up +this love affair, you will make Mother wretched to the end of her +days. Believe me, my dear, the past, whatever it was, can't be +buried--it can't indeed." + +Jon got off the arm of the chair. + +'The girl--' thought Jolyon--'there she goes--starting up before +him--life itself--eager, pretty, loving!' + +"I can't, Father; how can I--just because you say that? Of course +I can't!" + +"Jon, if you knew the story you would give this up without +hesitation; you would have to! Can't you believe me?" + +"How can you tell what I should think? Why, I love her better than +anything in the world." + +Jolyon's face twitched, and he said with painful slowness: + +"Better than your mother, Jon?" + +From the boy's face, and his clenched fists Jolyon realised the +stress and struggle he was going through. + +"I don't know," he burst out, "I don't know! But to give Fleur up +for nothing--for something I don't understand, for something that +I don't believe can really matter half so much, will make me--make +me--" + +"Make you feel us unjust, put a barrier--yes. But that's better +than going on with this." + +"I can't. Fleur loves me, and I love her. You want me to trust +you; why don't you trust me, Father? We wouldn't want to know +anything--we wouldn't let it make any difference. It'll only make +us both love you and Mother all the more." + +Jolyon put his hand into his breast pocket, but brought it out +again empty, and sat, clucking his tongue against his teeth. + +"Think what your mother's been to you, Jon! She has nothing but +you; I shan't last much longer." + +"Why not? It isn't fair to--Why not?" + +"Well," said Jolyon, rather coldly, "because the doctors tell me I +shan't; that's all." + +"Oh! Dad!" cried Jon, and burst into tears. + +This downbreak of his son, whom he had not seen cry since he was +ten, moved Jolyon terribly. He recognised to the full how +fearfully soft the boy's heart was, how much he would suffer in +this business, and in life generally. And he reached out his hand +helplessly--not wishing, indeed not daring to get up. + +"Dear man," he said, "don't--or you'll make me!" + +Jon smothered down his paroxysm, and stood with face averted, very +still. + +'What now?' thought Jolyon; 'what can I say to move him?' + +"By the way, don't speak of that to Mother," he said; "she has +enough to scare her with this affair of yours. I know how you +feel. But, Jon, you know her and me well enough to be sure we +wouldn't wish to spoil your happiness lightly. Why, my dear boy, +we don't care for anything but your happiness--at least, with me +it's just yours and Mother's and with her just yours. It's all the +future for you both that's at stake." + +Jon turned. His face was deadly pale; his eyes, deep in his head, +seemed to burn. + +"What is it? What is it? Don't keep me like this!" + +Jolyon, who knew that he was beaten, thrust his hand again into +his breast pocket, and sat for a full minute, breathing with +difficulty, his eyes closed. The thought passed through his mind: +'I've had a good long innings--some pretty bitter moments--this +is the worst!' Then he brought his hand out with the letter, and +said with a sort of fatigue: "Well, Jon, if you hadn't come to- +day, I was going to send you this. I wanted to spare you--I wanted +to spare your mother and myself, but I see it's no good. Read it, +and I think I'll go into the garden." He reached forward to get +up. + +Jon, who had taken the letter, said quickly: "No, I'll go"; and +was gone. + +Jolyon sank back in his chair. A blue-bottle chose that moment to +come buzzing round him with a sort of fury; the sound was homely, +better than nothing. ... Where had the boy gone to read his +letter? The wretched letter--the wretched story! A cruel business-- +cruel to her--to Soames--to those two children--to himself! ... +His heart thumped and pained him. Life--its loves--its work--its +beauty--its aching, and--its end! A good time; a fine time in +spite of all; until--you regretted that you had ever been born. +Life--it wore you down, yet did not make you want to die--that was +the cunning evil! Mistake to have a heart! Again the blue-bottle +came buzzing--bringing in all the heat and hum and scent of +summer--yes, even the scent--as of ripe fruits, dried grasses, +sappy shrubs, and the vanilla breath of cows. And out there +somewhere in the fragrance Jon would be reading that letter, +turning and twisting its pages in his trouble, his bewilderment +and trouble-breaking his heart about it! The thought made Jolyon +acutely miserable. Jon was such a tender-hearted chap, +affectionate to his bones, and conscientious, too--it was so +damned unfair! He remembered Irene saying to him once: "Never was +any one born more loving and lovable than Jon. "Poor little Jon! +His world gone up the spout, all of a summer afternoon! Youth took +things so hard! And stirred, tormented by that vision of Youth +taking things hard, Jolyon got out of his chair, and went to the +window. The boy was nowhere visible. And he passed out. If one +could take any help to him now--one must! + +He traversed the shrubbery, glanced into the walled garden--no +Jon! Nor where the peaches and the apricots were beginning to +swell and colour. He passed the Cupressus-trees, dark and spiral, +into the meadow. Where had the boy got to? Had he rushed down to +the coppice--his old hunting-ground? Jolyon crossed the rows of +hay. They would cock it on Monday and be carrying the day after, +if rain held off. Often they had crossed this field together--hand +in hand, when Jon was a little chap. Dash it! The golden age was +over by the time one was ten! He came to the pond, where flies and +gnats were dancing over a bright reedy surface; and on into the +coppice. It was cool there, fragrant of larches. Still no Jon! He +called. No answer! On the log seat he sat down, nervous, anxious, +forgetting his own physical sensations. He had been wrong to let +the boy get away with that letter; he ought to have kept him under +his eye from the start! Greatly troubled, he got up to retrace his +steps. At the farm-buildings he called again, and looked into the +dark cow-house. There in the cool, and the scent of vanilla and +ammonia, away from flies, the three Alderneys were chewing the +quiet cud; just milked, waiting for evening, to be turned out +again into the lower field. One turned a lazy head, a lustrous +eye; Jolyon could see the slobber on its grey lower lip. He saw +everything with passionate clearness, in the agitation of his +nerves--all that in his time he had adored and tried to paint-- +wonder of light and shade and colour. No wonder the legend put +Christ into a manger--what more devotional than the eyes and moon- +white horns of a chewing cow in the warm dusk! He called again. No +answer! And he hurried away out of the coppice, past the pond, up +the hill. Oddly ironical--now he came to think of it--if Jon had +taken the gruel of his discovery down in the coppice where his +mother and Bosinney in those old days had made the plunge of +acknowledging their love. Where he himself, on the log seat the +Sunday morning he came back from Paris, had realised to the full +that Irene had become the world to him. That would have been the +place for Irony to tear the veil from before the eyes of Irene's +boy! But he was not here! Where had he got to? One must find the +poor chap! + +A gleam of sun had come, sharpening to his hurrying senses all the +beauty of the afternoon, of the tall trees and lengthening +shadows, of the blue, and the white clouds, the scent of the hay, +and the cooing of the pigeons; and the flower shapes standing +tall. He came to the rosary, and the beauty of the roses in that +sudden sunlight seemed to him unearthly. "Rose, you Spaniard!" +Wonderful three words! There she had stood by that bush of dark +red roses; had stood to read and decide that Jon must know it all! +He knew all now! Had she chosen wrong? He bent and sniffed a rose, +its petals brushed his nose and trembling lips; nothing so soft as +a rose-leaf's velvet, except her neck--Irene! On across the lawn +he went, up the slope, to the oak-tree. Its top alone was +glistening, for the sudden sun was away over the house; the lower +shade was thick, blessedly cool--he was greatly overheated. He +paused a minute with his hand on the rope of the swing--Jolly, +Holly--Jon! The old swing! And, suddenly, he felt horribly--deadly +ill. 'I've overdone it!' he thought: 'by Jove. I've overdone it-- +after all!' He staggered up towards the terrace, dragged himself +up the steps, and fell against the wall of the house. He leaned +there gasping, his face buried in the honeysuckle that he and she +had taken such trouble with that it might sweeten the air which +drifted in. Its fragrance mingled with awful pain. 'My Love!' he +thought; 'the boy!' And with a great effort he tottered in through +the long window, and sank into old Jolyon's chair. The book was +there, a pencil in it; he caught it up, scribbled a word on the +open page. ... His hand dropped. ... So it was like this--was it? ... + +There was a great wrench; and darkness. ... + + + + + +III + +IRENE! + + +When Jon rushed away with the letter in his hand, he ran along the +terrace and round the corner of the house, in fear and confusion. +Leaning against the creepered wall he tore open the letter. It was +long--very long! This added to his fear, and he began reading. +When he came to the underlined words: "It was Fleur's father that +she married," everything swam before him. He was close to a +window, and entering by it, he passed, through music-room and +hall, up to his bedroom. Dipping his face in cold water, he sat on +his bed, and went on reading, dropping each finished page on the +bed beside him. His father's writing was easy to read--he knew it +so well, though he had never had a letter from him one quarter so +long. He read with a dull feeling--imagination only half at work. +He best grasped, on that first reading, the pain his father must +have had in writing such a letter. He let the last sheet fall, and +in a sort of mental, moral helplessness he began to read the first +again. It all seemed to him disgusting--dead and disgusting. Then, +suddenly, a hot wave of horrified emotion tingled through him. He +buried his face in his hands. His mother! Fleur's father! He took +up the letter again, and read on mechanically. And again came the +feeling that it was all dead and disgusting; his own love so +different! This letter said his mother--and her father! An awful +letter! + +Property! Could there be men who looked on women as their +property? Faces seen in street and countryside came thronging up +before him--red, stock-fish faces; hard, dull faces; prim, dry +faces; violent faces; hundreds, thousands of them! How could he +know what men who had such faces thought and did? He held his head +in his hands and groaned. His mother! He caught up the letter and +read on again: "horror and aversion--alive in her to-day ... your +children ... grandchildren ... of a man who once owned your mother +as a man might own a slave. ..." He got up from his bed. This +cruel shadowy past, lurking there to murder his love and Fleur's, +was true, or his father could never have written it. 'Why didn't +they tell me the first thing,' he thought, 'the day I first saw +Fleur? They knew I'd seen her. They were afraid, and--now--I've-- +got it!' Overcome by misery too acute for thought or reason, he +crept into a dusky corner of the room and sat down on the floor. +He sat there, like some unhappy little animal. There was comfort +in dusk, and in the floor--as if he were back in those days when +he played his battles sprawling all over it. He sat there huddled, +his hair ruffled, his hands clasped round his knees, for how long +he did not know. He was wrenched from his blank wretchedness by +the sound of the door opening from his mother's room. The blinds +were down over the windows of his room, shut up in his absence, +and from where he sat he could only hear a rustle, her footsteps +crossing, till beyond the bed he saw her standing before his +dressing-table. She had something in her hand. He hardly breathed, +hoping she would not see him, and go away. He saw her touch things +on the table as if they had some virtue in them, then face the +window--grey from head to foot like a ghost. The least turn of her +head, and she must see him! Her lips moved: "Oh! Jon!" She was +speaking to herself; the tone of her voice troubled Jon's heart. +He saw in her hand a little photograph. She held it towards the +light, looking at it--very small. He knew it--one of himself as a +tiny boy, which she always kept in her bag. His heart beat fast. +And, suddenly, as if she had heard it, she turned her eyes and saw +him. At the gasp she gave, and the movement of her hands pressing +the photograph against her breast, he said: + +"Yes, it's me." + +She moved over to the bed, and sat down on it, quite close to him, +her hands still clasping her breast, her feet among the sheets of +the letter which had slipped to the floor. She saw them, and her +hands grasped the edge of the bed. She sat very upright, her dark +eyes fixed on him. At last she spoke. + +"Well, Jon, you know, I see." + +"Yes." + +"You've seen Father?" + +"Yes." + +There was a long silence, till she said: + +"Oh! my darling!" + +"It's all right." The emotions in him were so violent and so mixed +that he dared not move--resentment, despair, and yet a strange +yearning for the comfort of her hand on his forehead. + +"What are you going to do?" + +"I don't know." + +There was another long silence, then she got up. She stood a +moment, very still, made a little movement with her hand, and +said: "My darling boy, my most darling boy, don't think of me-- +think of yourself." And, passing round the foot of the bed, went +back into her room. + +Jon turned--curled into a sort of ball, as might a hedgehog--into +the corner made by the two walls. + +He must have been twenty minutes there before a cry roused him. It +came from the terrace below. He got up, scared. Again came the +cry: "Jon!" His mother was calling! He ran out and down the +stairs, through the empty dining-room into the study. She was +kneeling before the old armchair, and his father was lying back +quite white, his head on his breast, one of his hands resting on +an open book, with a pencil clutched in it--more strangely still +than anything he had ever seen. She looked round wildly, and said: + +"Oh! Jon--he's dead--he's dead!" + +Jon flung himself down, and reaching over the arm of the chair, +where he had lately been sitting, put his lips to the forehead. +Icy cold! How could--how could Dad be dead, when only an hour ago-- +His mother's arms were round the knees; pressing her breast +against them. "Why--why wasn't I with him?" he heard her whisper. +Then he saw the tottering word "Irene" pencilled on the open page, +and broke down himself. It was his first sight of human death, and +its unutterable stillness blotted from him all other emotion; all +else, then, was but preliminary to this! All love and life, and +joy, anxiety, and sorrow, all movement, light and beauty, but a +beginning to this terrible white stillness. It made a dreadful +mark on him; all seemed suddenly little, futile, short. He +mastered himself at last, got up, and raised her. + +"Mother! don't cry--Mother!" + +Some hours later, when all was done that had to be, and his mother +was lying down, he saw his father alone, on the bed, covered with +a white sheet. He stood for a long time gazing at that face which +had never looked angry--always whimsical, and kind. "To be kind +and keep your end up--there's nothing else in it," he had once +heard his father say. How wonderfully Dad had acted up to that +philosophy! He understood now that his father had known for a long +time past that this would come suddenly--known, and not said a +word. He gazed with an awed and passionate reverence. The +loneliness of it--just to spare his mother and himself! His own +trouble seemed small while he was looking at that face. The word +scribbled on the page! The farewell word! Now his mother had no +one but himself! He went up close to the dead face--not changed at +all, and yet completely changed. He had heard his father say once +that he did not believe in consciousness surviving death, or that +if it did it might be just survival till the natural age-limit of +the body had been reached--the natural term of its inherent +vitality; so that if the body were broken by accident, excess, +violent disease, consciousness might still persist till, in the +course of Nature uninterfered with, it would naturally have faded +out. The whimsical conceit had struck him. When the heart failed +like this--surely it was not quite natural! Perhaps his father's +consciousness was in the room with him. Above the bed hung a +picture of his father's father. Perhaps HIS consciousness, too, +was still alive; and his brother's--his half-brother, who had died +in the Transvaal. Were they all gathered round this bed? Jon +kissed the forehead, and stole back to his own room. The door +between it and his mother's was ajar; she had evidently been in-- +everything was ready for him, even some biscuits and hot milk, and +the letter no longer on the floor. He ate and drank, watching the +last light fade. He did not try to see into the future--just +stared at the dark branches of the oak-tree, level with his +window, and felt as if life had stopped. Once in the night, +turning in his heavy sleep, he was conscious of something white +and still, beside his bed, and started up. His mother's voice +said: + +"It's only I, Jon dear!" Her hand pressed his forehead gently +back; her white figure disappeared. + +Alone! He fell heavily asleep again, and dreamed he saw his +mother's name crawling on his bed. + + + + + +IV + +SOAMES COGITATES + + +The announcement in THE TIMES of his cousin Jolyon's death +affected Soames quite simply. So that chap was gone! There had +never been a time in their two lives when love had not been lost +between them. That quick-blooded sentiment hatred had run its +course long since in Soames' heart, and he had refused to allow +any recrudescence, but he considered this early decease a piece of +poetic justice. For twenty years the fellow had enjoyed the +reversion of his wife and house, and--he was dead! The obituary +notice, which appeared a little later, paid Jolyon--he thought-- +too much attention. It spoke of that "diligent and agreeable +painter whose work we have come to look on as typical of the best +late-Victorian water-colour art." Soames, who had almost +mechanically preferred Mole, Morpin, and Caswell Baye, and had +always sniffed quite audibly when he came to one of his cousin's +on the line, turned THE TIMES with a crackle. + +He had to go up to Town that morning on Forsyte affairs, and was +fully conscious of Gradman's glance sidelong over his spectacles. +The old clerk had about him an aura of regretful congratulation. +He smelled, as it were, of old days. One could almost hear him +thinking: "Mr. Jolyon, ye-es--just my age, and gone--dear, dear! I +dare say she feels it. She was a naice-lookin' woman. Flesh is +flesh! They've given 'im a notice in the papers. Fancy!" His +atmosphere in fact caused Soames to handle certain leases and +conversions with exceptional swiftness. + +"About that settlement on Miss Fleur, Mr. Soames?" + +"I've thought better of that," answered Soames shortly. + +"Aoh! I'm glad of that. I thought you were a little hasty. The +times do change." + +How this death would affect Fleur had begun to trouble Soames. He +was not certain that she knew of it--she seldom looked at the +paper, never at the births, marriages, and deaths. + +He pressed matters on, and made his way to Green Street for lunch. +Winifred was almost doleful. Jack Cardigan had broken a +splashboard, so far as one could make out, and would not be "fit" +for some time. She could not get used to the idea. + +"Did Profond ever get off?" he said suddenly. + +"He got off," replied Winifred, "but where--I don't know." + +Yes, there it was--impossible to tell anything! Not that he wanted +to know. Letters from Annette were coming from Dieppe, where she +and her mother were staying. + +"You saw that fellow's death, I suppose?" + +"Yes," said Winifred. "I'm sorry for his children. He was very +amiable." + +Soames uttered a rather queer sound. A suspicion of the old deep +truth--that men were judged in this world rather by what they were +than by what they did--crept and knocked resentfully at the back +door of his mind. + +"I know there was a superstition to that effect," he muttered. + +"One must do him justice now he's dead." + +"I should like to have done him justice before," said Soames; "but +I never had the chance. Have you got a 'Baronetage' here?" + +"Yes; in that bottom row." + +Soames took out a fat red book, and ran over the leaves. + +"Mont--Sir Lawrence, 9th Bt. cr. 1620. e.s. of Geoffrey 8th Bt. +and Lavinia daur. of Sir Charles Muskham Bt. of Muskham Hall, +Shrops: marr. 1890 Emily, daur. of Conway Charwell Esq. of +Condaford Grange, co. Oxon; 1 son, heir Michael Conway, b. 1895, 2 +daurs. Residence: Lippinghall Manor, Folwell, Bucks: Clubs: +Snooks: Coffee House: Aeroplane. See Bidlicott." + +"H'm!" he said: "Did you ever know a publisher?" + +"Uncle Timothy." + +"Alive, I mean." + +"Monty knew one at his Club. He brought him here to dinner once. +Monty was always thinking of writing a book, you know, about how +to make money on the turf. He tried to interest that man." + +"Well?" + +"He put him on to a horse--for the Two Thousand. We didn't see him +again. He was rather smart, if I remember." + +"Did it win?" + +"No; it ran last, I think. You know Monty really was quite clever +in his way.". + +"Was he?" said Soames. "Can you see any connection between a +sucking baronet and publishing?" + +"People do all sorts of things nowadays," replied Winifred. "The +great stunt seems not to be idle--so different from our time. To +do nothing was the thing then. But I suppose it'll come again." + +"This young Mont that I'm speaking of is very sweet on Fleur. If +it would put an end to that other affair I might encourage it." + +"Has he got style?" asked Winifred. + +"He's no beauty; pleasant enough, with some scattered brains. +There's a good deal of land, I believe. He seems genuinely +attached. But I don't know." + +"No," murmured Winifred; "it's very difficult. I always found it +best to do nothing. It IS such a bore about Jack; now we shan't +get away till after Bank holiday. Well, the people are always +amusing, I shall go into the Park and watch them." + +"If I were you," said Soames, "I should have a country cottage, +and be out of the way of holidays and strikes when you want." + +"The country bores me," answered Winifred, "and I found the +railway strike quite exciting." + +Winifred had always been noted for sang-froid. + +Soames took his leave. All the way down to Reading he debated +whether he should tell Fleur of that boy's father's death. It did +not alter the situation except that he would be independent now, +and only have his mother's opposition to encounter. He would come +into a lot of money, no doubt, and perhaps the house--the house +built for Irene and himself--the house whose architect had wrought +his domestic ruin. His daughter--mistress of that house! That +would be poetic justice! Soames uttered a little mirthless laugh. +He had designed that house to re-establish his failing union, +meant it for the seat of his descendants, if he could have induced +Irene to give him one! Her son and Fleur! Their children would be, +in some sort, offspring of the union between himself and her! + +The theatricality in that thought was repulsive to his sober +sense. And yet--it would be the easiest and wealthiest way out of +the impasse, now that Jolyon was gone. The juncture of two Forsyte +fortunes had a kind of conservative charm. And she--Irene--would +be linked to him once more. Nonsense! Absurd! He put the notion +from his head. + +On reaching home he heard the click of billiard-balls; and through +the window saw young Mont sprawling over the table. Fleur, with +her cue akimbo, was watching with a smile. How pretty she looked! +No wonder that young fellow was out of his mind about her. A +title--land! There was little enough in land, these days; perhaps +less in a title. The old Forsytes had always had a kind of +contempt for titles, rather remote and artificial things--not +worth the money they cost, and having to do with the Court. They +had all had that feeling in differing measure--Soames remembered. +Swithin, indeed, in his most expansive days had once attended a +Levee. He had come away saying he shouldn't go again--"All that +small fry!" It was suspected that he had looked too big in knee- +breeches. Soames remembered how his own mother had wished to be +presented because of the fashionable nature of the performance, +and how his father had put his foot down with unwonted decision. +What did she want with such peacocking--wasting time and money; +there was nothing in it! + +The instinct which had made and kept the British Commons the chief +power in the State, a feeling that their own world was good enough +and a little better than any other because it was THEIR world, had +kept the old Forsytes singularly free of "flummery," as Nicholas +had been wont to call it when he had the gout. Soames' generation, +more self-conscious and ironical, had been saved by a sense of +Swithin in knee-breeches. While the third and the fourth +generation, as it seemed to him, laughed at everything. + +However, there was no harm in the young fellow's being heir to a +title and estate--a thing one couldn't help. He entered quietly, +as Mont missed his shot. He noted the young man's eyes, fixed on +Fleur bending over in her turn; and the adoration in them almost +touched him. + +She paused with the cue poised on the bridge of her slim hand, and +shook her crop of short dark chestnut hair. + +"I shall never do it." + +"'Nothing venture!'" + +"All right!" The cue struck, the ball rolled. "There!" + +"Bad luck! Never mind!" + +Then they saw him, and Soames said: "I'll mark for you." + +He sat down on the raised seat beneath the marker, trim and tired, +furtively studying those two young faces. When the game was over +Mont came up to him. "I've started in, sir. Rum game, business, +isn't it? I suppose you saw a lot of human nature as a solicitor." + +"I did." + +"Shall I tell you what I've noticed: People are quite on the wrong +track in offering less than they can afford to give; they ought to +offer more, and work backward." + +Soames raised his eyebrows. "Suppose the more is accepted?" + +"That doesn't matter a little bit," said Mont; "it's much more +paying to abate a price than to increase it. For instance, say we +offer an author good terms--he naturally takes them. Then we go +into it, find we can't publish at a decent profit and tell him so. +He's got confidence in us because we've been generous to him, and +he comes down like a lamb, and bears us no malice. But if we offer +him poor terms at the start, he doesn't take them, so we have to +advance them to get him, and he thinks us damned screws into the +bargain." + +"Try buying pictures on that system"; said Soames, "an offer +accepted is a contract--haven't you learned that?" + +Young Mont turned his head to where Fleur was standing in the +window. + +"No," he said, "I wish I had. Then there's another thing. Always +let a man off a bargain if he wants to be let off." + +"As advertisement?" said Soames dryly. + +"Of course it IS; but I meant on principle." + +"Does your firm work on those lines?" + +"Not yet," said Mont, "but it'll come." + +"And they will go." + +"No, really, sir. I'm making any number of observations, and they +all confirm my theory. Human nature is consistently underrated in +business, people do themselves out of an awful lot of pleasure and +profit by that. Of course, you must be perfectly genuine and open, +but that's easy if you feel it. The more human and generous you +are the better chance you've got in business." + +Soames rose. + +"Are you a partner?" + +"Not for six months, yet." + +"The rest of the firm had better make haste and retire." + +Mont laughed. + +"You'll see," he said. "There's going to be a big change. The +possessive principle has got its shutters up." + +"What?" said Soames. + +"The house is to let! Good-bye, sir; I'm off now." + +Soames watched his daughter give her hand, saw her wince at the +squeeze it received, and distinctly heard the young man's sigh as +he passed out. Then she came from the window, trailing her finger +along the mahogany edge of the billiard-table. Watching her, +Soames knew that she was going to ask him something. Her finger +felt round the last pocket, and she looked up. + +"Have you done anything to stop Jon writing to me, Father?" + +Soames shook his head. + +"You haven't seen, then?" he said. "His father died just a week +ago to-day." + +"Oh!" + +In her startled, frowning face, he saw the instant struggle to +apprehend what this would mean. + +"Poor Jon! Why didn't you tell me, Father?" + +"I never know!" said Soames slowly; "you don't confide in me." + +"I would, if you'd help me, dear." + +"Perhaps I shall." + +Fleur clasped her hands. "Oh! darling--when one wants a thing +fearfully, one doesn't think of other people. Don't be angry with +me." + +Soames put out his hand, as if pushing away an aspersion. + +"I'm cogitating," he said. What on earth had made him use a word +like that! "Has young Mont been bothering you again?" + +Fleur smiled. "Oh! Michael! He's always bothering; but he's such a +good sort--I don't mind him." + +"Well," said Soames, "I'm tired; I shall go and have a nap before +dinner." + +He went up to his picture-gallery, lay down on the couch there, +and closed his eyes. A terrible responsibility this girl of his-- +whose mother was--ah! what was she? A terrible responsibility! +Help her--how could he help her? He could not alter the fact that +he was her father. Or that Irene--! What was it young Mont had +said--some nonsense about the possessive instinct--shutters up--To +let? Silly! + +The sultry air, charged with a scent of meadow-sweet, of river and +roses, closed on his senses, drowsing them. + + + + + +V + +THE FIXED IDEA + + +"The fixed idea," which has outrun more constables than any other +form of human disorder, has never more speed and stamina than when +it takes the avid guise of love. To hedges and ditches, and doors, +to humans without ideas fixed or otherwise, to perambulators and +the contents sucking their fixed ideas, even to the other +sufferers from this fast malady--the fixed idea of love pays no +attention. It runs with eyes turned inward to its own light, +oblivious of all other stars. Those with the fixed ideas that +human happiness depends on their art, on vivisecting dogs, on +hating foreigners, on paying supertax, on remaining Ministers, on +making wheels go round, on preventing their neighbours from being +divorced, on conscientious objection, Greek roots, Church dogma, +paradox and superiority to everybody else, with other forms of +ego-mania--all are unstable compared with him or her whose fixed +idea is the possession of some her or him. And though Fleur, those +chilly summer days, pursued the scattered life of a little Forsyte +whose frocks are paid for, and whose business is pleasure, she +was--as Winifred would have said in the latest fashion of speech-- +'honest-to-God' indifferent to it all. She wished and wished for +the moon, which sailed in cold skies above the river or the Green +Park when she went to Town. She even kept Jon's letters covered +with pink silk, on her heart, than which in days when corsets were +so low, sentiment so despised, and chests so out of fashion, there +could, perhaps, have been no greater proof of the fixity of her +idea. + +After hearing of his father's death, she had written to Jon, and +received his answer three days later on her return from a river +picnic. It was his first letter since their meeting at June's. She +opened it with misgiving, and read it with dismay. + +"Since I saw you I've heard everything about the past. I won't +tell it you--I think you knew when we met at June's. She says you +did. If you did, Fleur, you ought to have told me. I expect you +only heard your father's side of it. I have heard my mother's. +It's dreadful. Now that she's so sad I can't do anything to hurt +her more. Of course, I long for you all day, but I don't believe +now that we shall ever come together--there's something too strong +pulling us apart." + +Her deception had found her out. But Jon--she felt--had forgiven +that. It was what he said of his mother which caused the +fluttering in her heart and the weak sensation in her legs. + +Her first impulse was to reply--her second, not to reply. These +impulses were constantly renewed in the days which followed, while +desperation grew within her. She was not her father's child for +nothing. The tenacity, which had at once made and undone Soames, +was her backbone, too, frilled and embroidered by French grace and +quickness. Instinctively she conjugated the verb "to have" always +with the pronoun "I." She concealed, however, all signs of her +growing desperation, and pursued such river pleasures as the winds +and rain of a disagreeable July permitted, as if she had no care +in the world; nor did any "sucking baronet" ever neglect the +business of a publisher more consistently than her attendant +spirit, Michael Mont. + +To Soames she was a puzzle. He was almost deceived by this +careless gaiety. Almost--because he did not fail to mark her eyes +often fixed on nothing, and the film of light shining from her +bedroom window late at night. What was she thinking and brooding +over into small hours when she ought to have been asleep? But he +dared not ask what was in her mind; and, since that one little +talk in the billiard-room, she said nothing to him. + +In this taciturn condition of affairs it chanced that Winifred +invited them to lunch and to go afterwards to "a most amusing +little play, 'The Beggar's Opera,'" and would they bring a man to +make four? Soames, whose attitude towards theatres was to go to +nothing, accepted, because Fleur's attitude was to go to +everything. They motored up, taking Michael Mont, who, being in +his seventh heaven, was found by Winifred "very amusing." "The +Beggar's Opera" puzzled Soames. The people were unpleasant, the +whole thing cynical. Winifred was "intrigued"--by the dresses. The +music too did not displease her. At the Opera, the night before, +she had arrived too early for the Russian Ballet, and found the +stage occupied by singers, for a whole hour pale or apoplectic +from terror lest by some dreadful inadvertence they might drop +into a tune. Michael Mont was enraptured with the whole thing. And +all three wondered what Fleur was thinking of it. But Fleur was +not thinking of it. Her fixed idea stood on the stage and sang +with Polly Peachum, mimed with Filch, danced with Jenny Diver, +postured with Lucy Lockit, kissed, trolled, and cuddled with +Macheath. Her lips might smile, her hands applaud, but the comic +old masterpiece made no more impression on her than if it had been +pathetic, like a modern "Revue." When they embarked in the car to +return, she ached because Jon was not sitting next her instead of +Michael Mont. When, at some jolt, the young man's arm touched hers +as if by accident, she only thought: 'If that were Jon's arm!' +When his cheerful voice, tempered by her proximity, murmured above +the sound of the car's progress, she smiled and answered, +thinking: 'If that were Jon's voice!' and when once he said: +"Fleur, you look a perfect angel in that dress!" she answered: +"Oh, do you like it?" thinking: 'If only Jon could see it!' + +During this drive she took a resolution. She would go to Robin +Hill and see him--alone; she would take the car, without word +beforehand to him or to her father. It was nine days since his +letter, and she could wait no longer. On Monday she would go! The +decision made her well disposed towards young Mont. With something +to look forward to she could afford to tolerate and respond. He +might stay to dinner; propose to her as usual; dance with her, +press her hand, sigh--do what he liked. He was only a nuisance +when he interfered with her fixed idea. She was even sorry for him +so far as it was possible to be sorry for anybody but herself just +now. At dinner he seemed to talk more wildly than usual about what +he called 'the death of the close borough'--she paid little +attention, but her father seemed paying a good deal, with a smile +on his face which meant opposition, if not anger. + +"The younger generation doesn't think as you do, sir; does it, +Fleur?" + +Fleur shrugged her shoulders--the younger generation was just Jon, +and she did not know what he was thinking. + +"Young people will think as I do when they're my age, Mr. Mont. +Human nature doesn't change." + +"I admit that, sir; but the forms of thought change with the +times. The pursuit of self-interest is a form of thought that's +going out." + +"Indeed! To mind one's own business is not a form of thought, Mr. +Mont, it's an instinct." + +Yes, when Jon was the business! + +"But what is one's business, sir? That's the point, EVERYBODY'S +business is going to be one's business. Isn't it, Fleur?" + +Fleur only smiled. + +"If not," added young Mont, "there'll be blood." + +"People have talked like that from time immemorial." + +"But you'll admit, sir, that the sense of property is dying out?" + +"I should say increasing among those who have none." + +"Well, look at me! I'm heir to an entailed estate. I don't want +the thing; I'd cut the entail to-morrow." + +"You're not married, and you don't know what you're talking +about." + +Fleur saw the young man's eyes turn rather piteously upon her. + +"Do you really mean that marriage--?" he began. + +"Society is built on marriage," came from between her father's +close lips; "marriage and its consequences. Do you want to do away +with it?" + +Young Mont made a distracted gesture. Silence brooded over the +dinner-table, covered with spoons bearing the Forsyte crest--a +pheasant proper--under the electric light in an alabaster globe. +And outside, the river evening darkened, charged with heavy +moisture and sweet scents. + +'Monday,' thought Fleur; 'Monday!' + + + + + +VI + +DESPERATE + + +The weeks which followed the death of his father were sad and +empty to the only Jolyon Forsyte left. The necessary forms and +ceremonies--the reading of the Will, valuation of the estate, +distribution of the legacies--were enacted over the head, as it +were, of one not yet of age. Jolyon was cremated. By his special +wish no one attended that ceremony, or wore black for him. The +succession of his property, controlled to some extent by old +Jolyon's Will, left his widow in possession of Robin Hill, with +two thousand five hundred pounds a year for life. Apart from this +the two Wills worked together in some complicated way to insure +that each of Jolyon's three children should have an equal share in +their grandfather's and father's property in the future as in the +present, save only that Jon, by virtue of his sex, would have +control of his capital when he was twenty-one, while June and +Holly would only have the spirit of theirs, in order that their +children might have the body after them. If they had no children, +it would all come to Jon if he outlived them; and since June was +fifty, and Holly nearly forty, it was considered in Lincoln's Inn +Fields that but for the cruelty of income tax, young Jon would be +as warm a man as his grandfather when he died. All this was +nothing to Jon, and little enough to his mother. It was June who +did everything needful for one who had left his affairs in perfect +order. When she had gone, and those two were alone again in the +great house, alone with death drawing them together, and love +driving them apart, Jon passed very painful days secretly +disgusted and disappointed with himself. His mother would look at +him with a patient sadness which yet had in it an instinctive +pride, as if she were reserving her defence. If she smiled he was +angry that his answering smile should be so grudging and +unnatural. He did not judge or condemn her; that was all too +remote--indeed, the idea of doing so had never come to him. No! he +was grudging and unnatural because he couldn't have what he wanted +because of her. There was one alleviation--much to do in +connection with his father's career, which could not be safely +intrusted to June, though she had offered to undertake it. Both +Jon and his mother had felt that if she took his portfolios, +unexhibited drawings and unfinished matter, away with her, the +work would encounter such icy blasts from Paul Post and other +frequenters of her studio, that it would soon be frozen out even +of her warm heart. On its old-fashioned plane and of its kind the +work was good, and they could not bear the thought of its +subjection to ridicule. A one-man exhibition of his work was the +least testimony they could pay to one they had loved; and on +preparation for this they spent many hours together. Jon came to +have a curiously increased respect for his father. The quiet +tenacity with which he had converted a mediocre talent into +something really individual was disclosed by these researches. +There was a great mass of work with a rare continuity of growth in +depth and reach of vision. Nothing certainly went very deep, or +reached very high--but such as the work was, it was thorough, +conscientious, and complete. And, remembering his father's utter +absence of "side" or self-assertion, the chaffing humility with +which he had always spoken of his own efforts, ever calling +himself "an amateur," Jon could not help feeling that he had never +really known his father. To take himself seriously, yet never bore +others by letting them know that he did so, seemed to have been +his ruling principle. There was something in this which appealed +to the boy, and made him heartily indorse his mother's comment: +"He had true refinement; he couldn't help thinking of others, +whatever he did. And when he took a resolution which went counter, +he did it with the minimum of defiance--not like the Age, is it? +Twice in his life he had to go against everything; and yet it +never made him bitter." Jon saw tears running down her face, which +she at once turned away from him. She was so quiet about her loss +that sometimes he had thought she didn't feel it much. Now, as he +looked at her, he felt how far he fell short of the reserve power +and dignity in both his father and his mother. And, stealing up to +her, he put his arm round her waist. She kissed him swiftly, but +with a sort of passion, and went out of the room. + +The studio, where they had been sorting and labelling, had once +been Holly's schoolroom, devoted to her silk-worms, dried +lavender, music, and other forms of instruction. Now, at the end +of July, despite its northern and eastern aspects, a warm and +slumberous air came in between the long-faded lilac linen +curtains. To redeem a little the departed glory, as of a field +that is golden and gone, clinging to a room which its master has +left, Irene had placed on the paint-stained table a bowl of red +roses. This, and Jolyon's favourite cat, who still clung to the +deserted habitat, were the pleasant spots in that dishevelled, sad +workroom. Jon, at the north window, sniffing air mysteriously +scented with warm strawberries, heard a car drive up. The lawyers +again about some nonsense! Why did that scent so make one ache? +And where did it come from--there were no strawberry beds on this +side of the house. Instinctively he took a crumpled sheet of paper +from his pocket, and wrote down some broken words. A warmth began +spreading in his chest; he rubbed the palms of his hands together. +Presently he had jotted this: + + "If I could make a little song-- + A little song to soothe my heart! + I'd make it all of little things-- + The plash of water, rub of wings, + The puffing-off of dandie's crown, + The hiss of raindrop spilling down, + The purr of cat, the trill of bird, + And ev'ry whispering I've heard + From willy wind in leaves and grass, + And all the distant drones that pass. + A song, as tender and as light + As flower, or butterfly in flight; + And when I saw it opening + I'd let it fly, and sing!" + +He was still muttering it over to himself at the window, when he +heard his name called, and, turning round, saw Fleur. At that +amazing apparition, he made at first no movement and no sound, +while her clear vivid glance ravished his heart. Then he went +forward to the table, saying: "How nice of you to come!" and saw +her flinch as if he had thrown something at her. + +"I asked for you," she said, "and they showed me up here. But I +can go away again." + +Jon clutched the paint-stained table. Her face and figure in its +frilly frock, photographed itself with such startling vividness +upon his eyes, that if she had sunk through the floor he must +still have seen her. + +"I know I told you a lie, Jon. But I told it out of love." + +"Oh! yes! That's nothing!" + +"I didn't answer your letter. What was the use--there wasn't +anything to answer. I wanted to see you instead." She held out +both her hands, and Jon grasped them across the table. He tried to +say something, but all his attention was given to trying not to +hurt her hands. His own felt so hard and hers so soft. She said +almost defiantly: + +"That old story--was it so very dreadful?" + +"Yes." In his voice, too, there was a note of defiance. + +She dragged her hands away. "I didn't think in these days boys +were tied to their mothers' apron-strings." + +Jon's chin went up as if he had been struck. + +"Oh! I didn't mean it, Jon. What a horrible thing to say!" Swiftly +she came close to him. "Jon, dear; I didn't mean it." + +"All right." + +She had put her two hands on his shoulder, and her forehead down +on them; the brim of her hat touched his neck, and he felt it +quivering. But, in a sort of paralysis, he made no response. She +let go of his shoulder and drew away. + +"Well, I'll go, if you don't want me. But I never thought you'd +have given me up." + +"I HAVEN'T," cried Jon, coming suddenly to life. "I can't. I'll +try again." + +She swayed towards him. "Jon--I love you! Don't give me up! If you +do, I don't know what I shall do--I feel so desperate. What does +it matter--all that past--compared with THIS?" + +She clung to him. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. But +while he kissed her he saw the sheets of that letter fallen down +on the floor of his bedroom--his father's white dead face--his +mother kneeling before it. Fleur's whisper: "Make her! Promise! +Oh! Jon, try!" seemed childish in his ear. He felt curiously old. + +"I promise!" he muttered. "Only, you don't understand." + +"She wants to spoil our lives, just because--" + +"Yes, of what?" + +Again that challenge in his voice, and she did not answer. Her +arms tightened round him, and he returned her kisses; but even +while he yielded, the poison worked in him, the poison of the +letter. Fleur did not know, she did not understand--she misjudged +his mother; she came from the enemy's camp! So lovely, and he +loved her so--yet, even in her embrace, he could not help the +memory of Holly's words: "I think she has a 'having' nature," and +his mother's: "My darling boy; don't think of me--think of +yourself." + +When she was gone like a passionate dream, leaving her image on +his eyes, her kisses on his lips, such an ache in his heart, Jon +leaned in the window, listening to the car bearing her away. Still +the scent as of warm strawberries, still the little summer sounds +that should make his song; still all the promise of youth and +happiness in sighing, floating, fluttering July--and his heart +torn; yearning strong in him; hope high in him, yet with its eyes +cast down, as if ashamed. The miserable task before him! If Fleur +was desperate, so was he--watching the poplars swaying, the white +clouds passing, the sunlight on the grass. + +He waited till evening, till after their almost silent dinner, +till his mother had played to him--and still he waited, feeling +that she knew what he was waiting to say. She kissed him and went +up-stairs, and still he lingered, watching the moonlight and the +moths, and that unreality of colouring which steals along and +stains a summer night. And he would have given anything to be back +in the past--barely three months back; or away forward, years, in +the future. The present with this stark cruelty of a decision, one +way or the other, seemed impossible. He realised now so much more +keenly what his mother felt than he had at first; as if the story +in that letter had been a poisonous germ producing a kind of fever +of partisanship, so that he really felt there were two camps, his +mother's and his--Fleur's and her father's. It might be a dead +thing, that old tragic ownership and enmity, but dead things were +poisonous till Time had cleaned them away. Even his love felt +tainted, less illusioned, more of the earth, and with a +treacherous lurking doubt lest Fleur, like her father, might want +to OWN; not articulate, just a stealing haunt, horribly unworthy, +which crept in and about the ardour of his memories, touched with +its tarnishing breath the vividness and grace of that charmed face +and figure--a doubt, not real enough to convince him of its +presence, just real enough to deflower a perfect faith. And +perfect faith, to Jon, not yet twenty, was essential. He still had +Youth's eagerness to give with both hands, to take with neither-- +to give lovingly to one who had his own impulsive generosity. +Surely she had! He got up from the window-seat and roamed in the +big grey ghostly room, whose walls were hung with silvered canvas. +This house--his father said in that death-bed letter--had been +built for his mother to live in--with Fleur's father! He put out +his hand in the half-dark, as if to grasp the shadowy hand of the +dead. He clenched, trying to feel the thin vanished fingers of his +father; to squeeze them, and reassure him that he--he was on his +father's side. Tears, prisoned within him, made his eyes feel dry +and hot. He went back to the window. It was warmer, not so eerie, +more comforting outside, where the moon hung golden, three days +off full; the freedom of the night was comforting. If only Fleur +and he had met on some desert island without a past--and Nature +for their house! Jon had still his high regard for desert islands, +where breadfruit grew, and the water was blue above the coral. The +night was deep, was free--there was enticement in it; a lure, a +promise, a refuge from entanglement, and love! Milksop tied to his +mother's--! His cheeks burned. He shut the window, drew curtains +over it, switched off the lighted sconce, and went up-stairs. + +The door of his room was open, the light turned up; his mother, +still in her evening gown, was standing at the window. She turned, +and said: + +"Sit down, Jon; let's talk." She sat down on the window-seat, Jon +on his bed. She had her profile turned to him, and the beauty and +grace of her figure, the delicate line of the brow, the nose, the +neck, the strange and as it were remote refinement of her, moved +him. His mother never belonged to her surroundings. She came into +them from somewhere--as it were! What was she going to say to him, +who had in his heart such things to say to her? + +"I know Fleur came to-day. I'm not surprised." It was as though +she had added: "She is her father's daughter!" And Jon's heart +hardened. Irene went on quietly: + +"I have Father's letter. I picked it up that night and kept it. +Would you like it back, dear?" + +Jon shook his head. + +"I had read it, of course, before he gave it to you. It didn't +quite do justice to my criminality." + +"Mother!" burst from Jon's lips. + +"He put it very sweetly, but I know that in marrying Fleur's +father without love I did a dreadful thing. An unhappy marriage, +Jon, can play such havoc with other lives besides one's own. You +are fearfully young, my darling, and fearfully loving. Do you +think you can possibly be happy with this girl?" + +Staring at her dark eyes, darker now from pain, Jon answered: + +"Yes; oh! yes--if YOU could be." + +Irene smiled. + +"Admiration of beauty, and longing for possession are not love. If +yours were another case like mine, Jon--where the deepest things +are stifled; the flesh joined, and the spirit at war!" + +"Why should it, Mother? You think she must be like her father, but +she's not. I've seen him." + +Again the smile came on Irene's lips, and in Jon something +wavered; there was such irony and experience in that smile. + +"You are a giver, Jon; she is a taker." + +That unworthy doubt, that haunting uncertainty again! He said with +vehemence: + +"She isn't--she isn't. It's only because I can't bear to make you +unhappy, Mother, now that Father--" He thrust his fists against +his forehead. + +Irene got up. + +"I told you that night, dear, not to mind me. I meant it. Think of +yourself and your own happiness! I can stand what's left--I've +brought it on myself." + +Again the word: "Mother!" burst from Jon's lips. + +She came over to him and put her hands over his. + +"Do you feel your head, darling?" + +Jon shook it. What he felt was in his chest--a sort of tearing +asunder of the tissue there, by the two loves. + +"I shall always love you the same, Jon, whatever you do. You won't +lose anything." She smoothed his hair gently, and walked away. + +He heard the door shut; and, rolling over on the bed, lay, +stifling his breath, with an awful held-up feeling within him. + + + + + +VII + +EMBASSY + + +Enquiring for her at tea time Soames learned that Fleur had been +out in the car since two. Three hours! Where had she gone? Up to +London without a word to him? He had never become quite reconciled +with cars. He had embraced them in principle--like the born +empiricist, or Forsyte, that he was--adopting each symptom of +progress as it came along with: "Well, we couldn't do without them +now." But in fact he found them tearing, great, smelly things. +Obliged by Annette to have one--a Rollhard with pearl-grey +cushions, electric light, little mirrors, trays for the ashes of +cigarettes, flower vases--all smelling of petrol and stephanotis-- +he regarded it much as he used to regard his brother-in-law, +Montague Dartie. The thing typified all that was fast, insecure, +and subcutaneously oily in modern life. As modern life became +faster, looser, younger, Soames was becoming older, slower, +tighter, more and more in thought and language like his father +James before him. He was almost aware of it himself. Pace and +progress pleased him less and less; there was an ostentation, too, +about a car which he considered provocative in the prevailing mood +of Labour. On one occasion that fellow Sims had driven over the +only vested interest of a working man. Soames had not forgotten +the behaviour of its master, when not many people would have +stopped to put up with it. He had been sorry for the dog, and +quite prepared to take its part against the car, if that ruffian +hadn't been so outrageous. With four hours fast becoming five, and +still no Fleur, all the old car-wise feelings he had experienced +in person and by proxy balled within him, and sinking sensations +troubled the pit of his stomach. At seven he telephoned to +Winifred by trunk call. No! Fleur had not been to Green Street. +Then where was she? Visions of his beloved daughter rolled up in +her pretty frills, all blood-and-dust-stained, in some hideous +catastrophe, began to haunt him. He went to her room and spied +among her things. She had taken nothing--no dressing-case, no +jewellery. And this, a relief in one sense, increased his fears of +an accident. Terrible to be helpless when his loved one was +missing, especially when he couldn't bear fuss or publicity of any +kind! What should he do, if she were not back by nightfall? + +At a quarter to eight he heard the car. A great weight lifted from +off his heart; he hurried down. She was getting out--pale and +tired-looking, but nothing wrong. He met her in the hall. + +"You've frightened me. Where have you been?" + +"To Robin Hill. I'm sorry, dear. I had to go; I'll tell you +afterwards." And, with a flying kiss, she ran up-stairs. + +Soames waited in the drawing-room. To Robin Hill! What did that +portend? + +It was not a subject they could discuss at dinner--consecrated to +the susceptibilities of the butler. The agony of nerves Soames had +been through, the relief he felt at her safety, softened his power +to condemn what she had done, or resist what she was going to do; +he waited in a relaxed stupor for her revelation. Life was a queer +business. There he was at sixty-five and no more in command of +things than if he had not spent forty years in building up +security--always something one couldn't get on terms with! In the +pocket of his dinner-jacket was a letter from Annette. She was +coming back in a fortnight. He knew nothing of what she had been +doing out there. And he was glad that he did not. Her absence had +been a relief. Out of sight was out of mind! And now she was +coming back. Another worry! And the Bolderby Old Crome was gone-- +Dumetrius had got it--all because that anonymous letter had put it +out of his thoughts. He furtively remarked the strained look on +his daughter's face, as if she too were gazing at a picture that +she couldn't buy. He almost wished the war back. Worries didn't +seem, then, quite so worrying. From the caress in her voice, the +look on her face, he became certain that she wanted something from +him, uncertain whether it would be wise of him to give it her. He +pushed his savoury away uneaten, and even joined her in a +cigarette. + +After dinner she set the electric piano-player going. And he +augured the worst when she sat down on a cushion footstool at his +knee, and put her hand on his. + +"Darling, be nice to me. I had to see Jon--he wrote to me. He's +going to try what he can do with his mother. But I've been +thinking. But it's really in YOUR hands, Father. If you'd persuade +her that it doesn't mean renewing the past in any way! That I +shall stay yours, and Jon will stay hers; that you need never see +him or her, and she need never see you or me! Only you could +persuade her, dear, because only you could promise. One can't +promise for other people. Surely it wouldn't be too awkward for +you to see her just this once--now that Jon's father is dead?" + +"Too awkward?" Soames repeated. "The whole thing's preposterous." + +"You know," said Fleur, without looking up, "you wouldn't mind +seeing her, really." + +Soames was silent. Her words had expressed a truth too deep for +him to admit. She slipped her fingers between his own--hot, slim, +eager, they clung there. This child of his would corkscrew her way +into a brick wall! + +"What am I to do, if you won't, Father?" she said very softly. + +"I'll do anything for your happiness," said Soames; "but this +isn't for your happiness." + +"Oh! it is; it is!" + +"It'll only stir things up," he said grimly. + +"But they are stirred up. The thing is to quiet them. To make her +feel that this is just OUR lives, and has nothing to do with yours +or hers. You can do it, Father, I know you can." + +"You know a great deal, then," was Soames' glum answer. + +"If you will, Jon and I will wait a year--two years if you like." + +"It seems to me," murmured Soames, "that you care nothing about +what I feel." + +Fleur pressed his hand against her cheek. + +"I do, darling. But you wouldn't like me to be awfully miserable." +How she wheedled to get her ends! And trying with all his might to +think she really cared for him--he was not sure--not sure. All +she cared for was this boy! Why should he help her to get this +boy, who was killing her affection for himself? Why should he? By +the laws of the Forsytes it was foolish! There was nothing to be +had out of it--nothing! To give her to that boy! To pass her into +the enemy's camp, under the influence of the woman who had injured +him so deeply! Slowly--inevitably--he would lose this flower of +his life! And suddenly he was conscious that his hand was wet. His +heart gave a little painful jump. He couldn't bear her to cry. He +put his other hand quickly over hers, and a tear dropped on that, +too. He couldn't go on like this! "Well, well," he said, "I'll +think it over, and do what I can. Come, come!" If she must have it +for her happiness--she must; he couldn't refuse to help her. And +lest she should begin to thank him he got out of his chair and +went up to the piano-player--making that noise! It ran down, as he +reached it, with a faint buzz. That musical box of his nursery +days: "The Harmonious Blacksmith," "Glorious Port"--the thing had +always made him miserable when his mother set it going on Sunday +afternoons. Here it was again--the same thing, only larger, more +expensive, and now it played: "The Wild Wild Women" and "The +Policeman's Holiday," and he was no longer in black velvet with a +sky-blue collar. 'Profond's right,' he thought, 'there's nothing +in it! We're all progressing to the grave!' And with that +surprising mental comment he walked out. + +He did not see Fleur again that night. But, at breakfast, her eyes +followed him about with an appeal he could not escape--not that he +intended to try. No! He had made up his mind to the nerve-racking +business. He would go to Robin Hill--to that house of memories. A +pleasant memory--the last! Of going down to keep that boy's father +and Irene apart by threatening divorce. He had often thought, +since, that it had clenched their union. And, now, he was going to +clench the union of that boy with his girl. 'I don't know what +I've done,' he thought, 'to have such things thrust on me!' He +went up by train and down by train, and from the station walked by +the long rising lane, still very much as he remembered it over +thirty years ago. Funny--so near London! Some one evidently was +holding on to the land there. This speculation soothed him, moving +between the high hedges slowly, so as not to get overheated, +though the day was chill enough. After all was said and done there +was something real about land, it didn't shift. Land, and good +pictures! The values might fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they +were always going up--worth holding on to, in a world where there +was such a lot of unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, +such a "Here to-day and gone to-morrow" spirit. The French were +right, perhaps, with their peasant proprietorship, though he had +no opinion of the French. One's bit of land! Something solid in +it! He had heard peasant-proprietors described as a pig-headed +lot; had heard young Mont call his father a pig-headed Morning +Poster--disrespectful young devil. Well, there were worse things +than being pig-headed or reading The Morning Post. There was +Profond and his tribe, and all these Labour chaps, and loud- +mouthed politicians, and "wild, wild women"! A lot of worse +things! And, suddenly, Soames became conscious of feeling weak, +and hot, and shaky. Sheer nerves at the meeting before him! As +Aunt Juley might have said--quoting "Superior Dosset"--his nerves +were "in a proper fantigue." He could see the house now among its +trees, the house he had watched being built, intending it for +himself and this woman, who, by such strange fate, had lived in it +with another after all! He began to think of Dumetrius, Local +Loans, and other forms of investment. He could not afford to meet +her with his nerves all shaking; he who represented the Day of +Judgment for her on earth as it was in heaven; he, legal +ownership, personified, meeting lawless beauty, incarnate. His +dignity demanded impassivity during this embassy designed to link +their offspring, who, if she had behaved herself, would have been +brother and sister. That wretched tune: "The Wild Wild Women" kept +running in his head, perversely, for tunes did not run there as a +rule. Passing the poplars in front of the house, he thought: 'How +they've grown; I had them planted!' + +A maid answered his ring. + +"Will you say--Mr. Forsyte, on a very special matter." + +If she realised who he was, quite probably she would not see him. +'By George!' he thought, hardening as the tug came: 'It's a +topsyturvy affair!' + +The maid came back. Would the gentleman state his business, +please? + +"Say it concerns Mr. Jon," said Soames. + +And once more he was alone in that hall with the pool of grey- +white marble designed by her first lover. Ah! she had been a bad +lot--had loved two men, and not himself! He must remember that +when he came face to face with her once more. And suddenly he saw +her in the opening chink between the long heavy purple curtains, +swaying, as if in hesitation; the old perfect poise and line, the +old startled dark-eyed gravity; the old calm defensive voice: +"Will you come in, please?" + +He passed through that opening. As in the picture-gallery and the +confectioner's shop, she seemed to him still beautiful. And this +was the first time--the very first--since he married her five and +thirty years ago, that he was speaking to her without the legal +right to call her his. She was not wearing black--one of that +fellow's radical notions, he supposed. + +"I apologise for coming," he said glumly; "but this business must +be settled one way or the other." + +"Won't you sit down?" + +"No, thank you." + +Anger at his false position, impatience of ceremony between them, +mastered him, and words came tumbling out: + +"It's an infernal mischance; I've done my best to discourage it. I +consider my daughter crazy, but I've got into the habit of +indulging her; that's why I'm here. I suppose you're fond of your +son." + +"Devotedly." + +"Well?" + +"It rests with him." + +He had a sense of being met and baffled. Always--always she had +baffled him, even in those old first married days. + +"It's a mad notion," he said. + +"It is." + +"If you had only--! Well--they might have been--" he did not +finish that sentence "brother and sister and all this saved," but +he saw her shudder as if he had, and stung by the sight, he +crossed over to the window. Out THERE the trees had not grown-- +they couldn't, they were old! + +"So far as I'm concerned," he said, "you may make your mind easy. +I desire to see neither you nor your son if this marriage comes +about. Young people in these days are--are unaccountable. But I +can't bear to see my daughter unhappy. What am I to say to her +when I go back?" + +"Please say to her, as I said to you, that it rests with Jon." + +"You don't oppose it?" + +"With all my heart; not with my lips." + +Soames stood, biting his finger. + +"I remember an evening--" he said suddenly; and was silent. What +was there--what was there in this woman that would not fit into +the four comers of his hate or condemnation? "Where is he--your +son?" + +"Up in his father's studio, I think." + +"Perhaps you'd have him down." + +He watched her ring the bell, he watched the maid come in. + +"Please tell Mr. Jon that I want him." + +"If it rests with him," said Soames hurriedly, when the maid was +gone, "I suppose I may take it for granted that this unnatural +marriage will take place: in that case there'll be formalities. +Whom do I deal with--Herring's?" Irene nodded. + +"You don't propose to live with them?" + +Irene shook her head. + +"What happens to this house?" + +"It will be as Jon wishes." + +"This house," said Soames suddenly: "I had hopes when I began it. +If THEY live in it--their children! They say there's such a thing +as Nemesis. Do you believe in it?" + +"Yes." + +"Oh! You do!" He had come back from the window, and was standing +close to her, who, in the curve of her grand piano, was, as it +were, embayed. + +"I'm not likely to see you again," he said slowly: "Will you shake +hands," his lip quivered, the words came out jerkily, "and let the +past die?" He held out his hand. Her pale face grew paler, her +eyes so dark, rested immovably on his, but her hands remained +clasped in front of her. He heard a sound and turned. That boy was +standing in the opening of the curtains. Very queer he looked, +hardly recognisable as the young fellow he had seen in the Gallery +off Cork Street--very queer; much older, no youth in the face at +all--haggard, rigid, his hair ruffled, his eyes deep in his head. +Soames made an effort, and said with a lift of his lip, not quite +a smile nor quite a sneer: + +"Well, young man! I'm here for my daughter; it rests with you, it +seems--this matter. Your mother leaves it in your hands." + +The boy continued staring at his mother's face, and made no +answer. + +"For my daughter's sake I've brought myself to come," said Soames. +"What am I to say to her when I go back?" + +Still looking at his mother, the boy said, quietly: + +"Tell Fleur that it's no good, please; I must do as my father +wished before he died." + +"Jon!" + +"It's all right, Mother." + +In a kind of stupefaction Soames looked from one to the other; +then, taking up hat and umbrella, which he had put down on a +chair, he walked towards the curtains. The boy stood aside for him +to go by. He passed through and heard the grate of the rings as +the curtains were drawn behind him. The sound liberated something +in his chest. + +'So that's that!' he thought, and passed out of the front door. + + + + + +VIII + +THE DARK TUNE + + +As Soames walked away from the house at Robin Hill the sun broke +through the grey of that chill afternoon, in smoky radiance. So +absorbed in landscape-painting that he seldom looked seriously for +effects of Nature out-of-doors, he was struck by that moody +effulgence--it mourned with a triumph suited to his own feeling. +Victory in defeat! His embassy had come to naught. But he was rid +of those people, had regained his daughter at the expense of--her +happiness. What would Fleur say to him? Would she believe he had +done his best? And under that sunlight flaring on the elms, +hazels, hollies of the lane and those unexploited fields, Soames +felt dread. She would be terribly upset! He must appeal to her +pride. That boy had given her up, declared part and lot with the +woman who so long ago had given her father up! Soames clenched his +hands. Given him up, and why? What had been wrong with him? And +once more he felt the malaise of one who contemplates himself as +seen by another--like a dog who chances on his reflection in a +mirror, and is intrigued and anxious at the unseizable thing. + +Not in a hurry to get home, he dined in town at the Connoisseurs. +While eating a pear it suddenly occurred to him that, if he had +not gone down to Robin Hill, the boy might not have so decided. He +remembered the expression on his face while his mother was +refusing the hand he had held out. A strange, an awkward thought! +Had Fleur cooked her own goose by trying to make too sure? + +He reached home at half-past nine. While the car was passing in at +one drive gate he heard the grinding sputter of a motor-cycle +passing out by the other. Young Mont, no doubt, so Fleur had not +been lonely. But he went in with a sinking heart. In the cream- +panelled drawing-room she was sitting with her elbows on her +knees, and her chin on her clasped hands, in front of a white +camellia plant which filled the fireplace. That glance at her +before she saw him renewed his dread. What was she seeing among +those white camellias? + +"Well, Father!" + +Soames shook his head. His tongue failed him. This was murderous +work! He saw her eyes dilate, her lips quivering. + +"What? What? Quick, Father!" + +"My dear," said Soames, "I--I did my best, but--" And again he +shook his head. + +Fleur ran to him and put a hand on each of his shoulders. + +"She?" + +"No," muttered Soames; "he. I was to tell you that it was no use; +he must do what his father wished before he died." He caught her +by the waist. "Come, child, don't let them hurt you. They're not +worth your little finger." + +Fleur tore herself from his grasp. + +"You didn't--you couldn't have tried. You--you betrayed me, +Father!" + +Bitterly wounded, Soames gazed at her passionate figure writhing +there in front of him. + +"You didn't try--you didn't--I was a fool--I won't believe he +could--he ever could! Only yesterday he--! Oh! why did I ask you?" + +"Yes," said Soames quietly, "why did you? I swallowed my feelings; +I did my best for you, against my judgment--and this is my +reward. Good-night!" + +With every nerve in his body twitching he went towards the door. + +Fleur darted after him. + +"He gives me up? You mean that? Father!" + +Soames turned and forced himself to answer: + +"Yes." + +"Oh!" cried Fleur. "What did you--what could you have done in +those old days?" + +The breathless sense of really monstrous injustice cut the power +of speech in Soames' throat. What had HE done! What had they done +to him! And with quite unconscious dignity he put his hand on his +breast, and looked at her. + +"It's a shame!" cried Fleur passionately. + +Soames went out. He mounted, slow and icy, to his picture-gallery, +and paced among his treasures. Outrageous! Oh! Outrageous! She was +spoiled! Ah! and who had spoiled her? He stood still before the +Goya copy. Accustomed to her own way in everything--Flower of his +life! And now that she couldn't have it. He turned to the window +for some air. Daylight was dying, the moon rising, gold behind the +poplars! What sound was that? Why! That piano thing! A dark tune, +with a thrum and a throb! She had set it going--what comfort could +she get from that? His eyes caught movement down there beyond the +lawn, under the trellis of rambler roses and young acacia-trees, +where the moonlight fell. There she was, roaming up and down. His +heart gave a little sickening jump. What would she do under this +blow? How could he tell? What did he know of her--he had only +loved her all his life--looked on her as the apple of his eye! He +knew nothing--had no notion. There she was--and that dark tune-- +and the river gleaming in the moonlight! + +'I must go out,' he thought. He hastened down to the drawing-room, +lighted just as he had left it, with the piano thrumming out that +waltz, or fox-trot, or whatever they called it in these days, and +passed through on to the verandah. Where could he watch, without +her seeing him? And he stole down through the fruit garden to the +boat-house. He was between her and the river now, and his heart +felt lighter. She was his daughter, and Annette's--she wouldn't do +anything foolish; but there it was--he didn't know! From the boat- +house window he could see the last acacia and the spin of her +skirt when she turned in her restless march. That tune had run +down at last--thank goodness! He crossed the floor and looked +through the farther window at the water slow-flowing past the +lilies. It made little bubbles against them, bright where a moon- +streak fell. He remembered suddenly that early morning when he had +slept in this boat-house after his father died, and she had just +been born--nearly nineteen years ago! Even now he recalled the +unaccustomed world when he woke up, the strange feeling it had +given him. That day the second passion of his life began--for this +girl of his, roaming under the acacias. What a comfort she had +been to him! And all the soreness and sense of outrage left him. +If he could make her happy again, he didn't care! An owl flew, +queeking, queeking; a bat flitted by; the moonlight brightened and +broadened on the water. How long was she going to roam about like +this! He went back to the window, and suddenly saw her coming down +to the bank. She stood quite close, on the landing-stage. And +Soames watched, clenching his hands. Should he speak to her? His +excitement was intense. The stillness of her figure, its youth, +its absorption in despair, in longing, in--itself. He would always +remember it, moonlit like that; and the faint sweet reek of the +river and the shivering of the willow leaves. She had everything +in the world that he could give her, except the one thing that she +could not have because of him! The perversity of things hurt him +at that moment, as might a fish-bone in his throat. Then, with an +infinite relief, he saw her turn back towards the house. What +could he give her to make amends? Pearls, travel, horses, other +young men--anything she wanted--that he might lose the memory of +her young figure lonely by the water! There! She had set that tune +going again! Why--it was a mania! Dark, thrumming, faint, +travelling from the house. It was as though she had said: "If I +can't have something to keep me going, I shall die of this!" +Soames dimly understood. Well, if it helped her, let her keep it +thrumming on all night! And, mousing back through the fruit +garden, he regained the verandah. Though he meant to go in and +speak to her now, he still hesitated, not knowing what to say, +trying hard to recall how it felt to be thwarted in love. He ought +to know, ought to remember--and he could not! Gone--all real +recollection; except that it had hurt him horribly. In this +blankness he stood passing his handkerchief over hands and lips, +which were very dry. By craning his head he could just see Fleur, +standing with her back to that piano still grinding out its tune, +her arms tight crossed on her breast, a lighted cigarette between +her lips, whose smoke half veiled her face. The expression on it +was strange to Soames, the eyes shone and stared, and every +feature was alive with a sort of wretched scorn and anger. Once or +twice he had seen Annette look like that--the face was too vivid, +too naked, not HIS daughter's at that moment. And he dared not go +in, realising the futility of any attempt at consolation. He sat +down in the shadow of the ingle-nook. Monstrous trick, that Fate +had played him! Nemesis! That old unhappy marriage! And in God's +name--why? How was he to know, when he wanted Irene so violently, +and she consented to be his, that she would never love him? The +tune died and was renewed, and died again, and still Soames sat in +the shadow, waiting for he knew not what. The fag of Fleur's +cigarette, flung through the window, fell on the grass; he watched +it glowing, burning itself out. The moon had freed herself above +the poplars, and poured her unreality on the garden. Comfortless +light, mysterious, withdrawn--like the beauty of that woman who +had never loved him--dappling the nemesias and the stocks with a +vesture not of earth. Flowers! And his flower so unhappy! Ah, why +could one not put happiness into Local Loans, gild its edges, +insure it against going down? Light had ceased to flow out now +from the drawing-room window. All was silent and dark in there. +Had she gone up? He rose, and, tiptoeing, peered in. It seemed so! +He entered. The verandah kept the moonlight out; and at first he +could see nothing but the outlines of furniture blacker than the +darkness. He groped towards the farther window to shut it. His +foot struck a chair, and he heard a gasp. There she was, curled +and crushed into the corner of the sofa! His hand hovered. Did she +want his consolation? He stood, gazing at that ball of crushed +frills and hair and graceful youth, trying to burrow its way out +of sorrow. How leave her there? At last he touched her hair, and +said: "Come, darling, better go to bed. I'll make it up to you, +somehow." How fatuous! But what could he have said? + + + + + +IX + +UNDER THE OAK-TREE + + +When their visitor had disappeared Jon and his mother +stood without speaking, till he said suddenly: "I ought to have +seen him out." But Soames was already walking down the drive, and +Jon went up-stairs to his father's studio, not trusting himself to +go back. The expression on his mother's face confronting the man +she had once been married to, had sealed a resolution growing +within him ever since she left him the night before. It had put +the finishing touch of reality. To marry Fleur would be to hit his +mother in the face; to betray his dead father! It was no good! Jon +had the least resentful of natures. He bore his parents no grudge +in this hour of his distress. For one so young there was a rather +strange power in him of seeing things in some sort of proportion. +It was worse for Fleur, worse for his mother even, than it was for +him. Harder than to give up was to be given up, or to be the cause +of some one you loved giving up for you. He must not, would not +behave grudgingly! While he stood watching the tardy sunlight, he +had again that sudden vision of the world which had come to him +the night before. Sea on sea, country on country, millions on +millions of people, all with their own lives, energies, joys, +griefs, and suffering--all with things they had to give up, and +separate struggles for existence. Even though he might be willing +to give up all else for the one thing he couldn't have, he would +be a fool to think his feelings mattered much in so vast a world, +and to behave like a cry-baby or a cad. He pictured the people who +had nothing--the millions who had given up life in the war, the +millions whom the war had left with life and little else; the +hungry children he had read of, the shattered men; people in +prison, every kind of unfortunate. And--they did not help him +much. If one had to miss a meal, what comfort in the knowledge +that many others had to miss it too? There was more distraction in +the thought of getting away out into this vast world of which he +knew nothing yet. He could not go on staying here, walled in and +sheltered, with everything so slick and comfortable, and nothing +to do but brood and think what might have been. He could not go +back to Wansdon, and the memories of Fleur. If he saw her again he +could not trust himself; and if he stayed here or went back there, +he would surely see her. While they were within reach of each +other that must happen. To go far away and quickly, was the only +thing to do. But, however much he loved his mother, he did not +want to go away with her. Then feeling that was brutal, he made up +his mind desperately to propose that they should go to Italy. For +two hours in that melancholy room he tried to master himself; then +dressed solemnly for dinner. + +His mother had done the same. They ate little, at some length, and +talked of his father's catalogue. The Show was arranged for +October, and beyond clerical detail there was nothing more to do. + +After dinner she put on a cloak and they went out; walked a +little, talked a little, till they were standing silent at last +beneath the oak-tree. Ruled by the thought: 'If I show anything, I +show all,' Jon put his arm through hers and said quite casually: + +"Mother, let's go to Italy." + +Irene pressed his arm, and said as casually: + +"It would be very nice; but I've been thinking you ought to see +and do more than you would if I were with you." + +"But then you'd be alone." + +"I was once alone for more than twelve years. Besides, I should +like to be here for the opening of Father's show." + +Jon's grip tightened round her arm; he was not deceived. + +"You couldn't stay here all by yourself; it's too big." + +"Not here, perhaps. In London, and I might go to Paris, after the +show opens. You ought to have a year at least, Jon, and see the +world." + +"Yes, I'd like to see the world and rough it. But I don't want to +leave you all alone." + +"My dear, I owe you that at least. If it's for your good, it'll be +for mine. Why not start to-morrow? You've got your passport." + +"Yes; if I'm going it had better be at once. Only--Mother--if--if +I wanted to stay out somewhere--America or anywhere, would you +mind coming presently?" + +"Wherever and whenever you send for me. But don't send until you +really want me." + +Jon drew a deep breath. + +"I feel England's choky." + +They stood a few minutes longer under the oak-tree--looking out +to where the grand stand at Epsom was veiled in evening. The +branches kept the moonlight from them, so that it only fell +everywhere else--over the fields and far away, and on the windows +of the creepered house behind, which soon would be to let. + + + + + +X + +FLEUR'S WEDDING + + +The October paragraphs describing the wedding of Fleur Forsyte to +Michael Mont hardly conveyed the symbolic significance of this +event. In the union of the great-granddaughter of "Superior +Dosset" with the heir of a ninth baronet was the outward and +visible sign of that merger of class in class which buttresses the +political stability of a realm. The time had come when the +Forsytes might resign their natural resentment against a +"flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more +natural due of their possessive instincts. Besides, they really +had to mount to make room for all those so much more newly rich. +In that quiet but tasteful ceremony in Hanover Square, and +afterwards among the furniture in Green Street, it had been +impossible for those not in the know to distinguish the Forsyte +troop from the Mont contingent--so far away was "Superior Dosset" +now. Was there, in the crease of his trousers, the expression of +his moustache, his accent, or the shine on his top hat, a pin to +choose between Soames and the ninth baronet himself? Was not Fleur +as self-possessed, quick, glancing, pretty, and hard as the +likeliest Muskham, Mont, or Charwell filly present? If anything, +the Forsytes had it in dress and looks and manners. They had +become "upper class" and now their name would be formally recorded +in the Stud Book, their money joined to land. Whether this was a +little late in the day, and those rewards of the possessive +instinct, lands and money destined for the melting-pot--was still +a question so moot that it was not mooted. After all, Timothy had +said Consols were goin' up. Timothy, the last, the missing link; +Timothy in extremis on the Bayswater Road--so Francie had +reported. It was whispered, too, that this young Mont was a sort +of socialist--strangely wise of him, and in the nature of +insurance, considering the days they lived in. There was no +uneasiness on that score. The landed classes produced that sort of +amiable foolishness at times, turned to safe uses and confined to +theory. As George remarked to his sister Francie: "They'll soon be +having puppies--that'll give him pause." + +The church with white flowers and something blue in the middle of +the East window, looked extremely chaste, as though endeavouring +to counteract the somewhat lurid phraseology of a Service +calculated to keep the thoughts of all on puppies. Forsytes, +Haymans, Tweetymans, sat in the left aisle; Monts, Charwells, +Muskhams in the right; while a sprinkling of Fleur's fellow- +sufferers at school, and of Mont's fellow-sufferers in the war, +gaped indiscriminately from either side, and three maiden ladies, +who had dropped in on their way from Skyward's, brought up the +rear, together with two Mont retainers and Fleur's old nurse. In +the unsettled state of the country as full a house as could be +expected. + +Mrs. Val Dartie, who sat with her husband in the third row, +squeezed his hand more than once during the performance. To her, +who knew the plot of this tragi-comedy, its most dramatic moment +was well-nigh painful. 'I wonder if Jon knows by instinct,' she +thought--Jon, out in British Columbia. She had received a letter +from him only that morning which had made her smile and say: + +"Jon's in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in +California. He thinks it's too nice there." + +"Oh!" said Val, "so he's beginning to see a joke again." + +"He's bought some land and sent for his mother." + +"What on earth will she do out there?" + +"All she cares about is Jon. Do you still think it a happy +release?" + +Val's shrewd eyes narrowed to grey pin-points between their dark +lashes. + +"Fleur wouldn't have suited him a bit. She's not bred right." + +"Poor little Fleur!" sighed Holly. Ah! it was strange--this +marriage! The young man, Mont, had caught her on the rebound, of +course, in the reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone down. +Such a plunge could not but be--as Val put it--an outside chance. +There was little to be told from the back view of her young +cousin's veil, and Holly's eyes reviewed the general aspect of +this Christian wedding. She who had made a love-match which had +been successful, had a horror of unhappy marriages. This might not +be one in the end--but it was clearly a toss-up; and to consecrate +a toss-up in this fashion with manufactured unction before a crowd +of fashionable free-thinkers--for who thought otherwise than +freely, or not at all, when they were 'dolled' up--seemed to her +as near a sin as one could find in an age which had abolished +them. Her eyes wandered from the prelate in his robes (a Charwell +--the Forsytes had not as yet produced a prelate) to Val, beside +her, thinking--she was certain of--the Mayfly filly at fifteen to +one for the Cambridgeshire. They passed on and caught the profile +of the ninth baronet, in counterfeitment of the kneeling process. +She could just see the neat ruck above his knees where he had +pulled his trousers up, and thought: 'Val's forgotten to pull up +his!' Her eyes passed to the pew in front of her, where Winifred's +substantial form was gowned with passion, and on again to Soames +and Annette kneeling side by side. A little smile came on her +lips--Prosper Profond, back from the South Seas of the Channel, +would be kneeling too, about six rows behind. Yes! This was a +funny "small" business, however it turned out; still it was in a +proper church and would be in the proper papers to-morrow morning. + +They had begun a hymn; she could hear the ninth baronet across the +aisle, singing of the hosts of Midian. Her little finger touched +Val's thumb--they were holding the same hymn-book--and a tiny +thrill passed through her, preserved from twenty years ago. He +stooped and whispered: + +"I say, d'you remember the rat?" The rat at their wedding in Cape +Colony, which had cleaned its whiskers behind the table at the +Registrar's! And between her little and third finger she squeezed +his thumb hard. + +The hymn was over, the prelate had begun to deliver his discourse. +He told them of the dangerous times they lived in, and the awful +conduct of the House of Lords in connection with divorce. They +were all soldiers--he said--in the trenches under the poisonous +gas of the Prince of Darkness, and must be manful. The purpose of +marriage was children, not mere sinful happiness. + +An imp danced in Holly's eyes--Val's eyelashes were meeting. +Whatever happened, he must NOT snore. Her finger and thumb closed +on his thigh; till he stirred uneasily. + +The discourse was over, the danger past. They were signing in the +vestry; and general relaxation had set in. + +A voice behind her said: + +"Will she stay the course?" + +"Who's that?" she whispered. + +"Old George Forsyte!" + +Holly demurely scrutinised one of whom she had often heard. Fresh +from South Africa, and ignorant of her kith and kin, she never saw +one without an almost childish curiosity. He was very big, and +very dapper; his eyes gave her a funny feeling of having no +particular clothes. + +"They're off!" she heard him say. + +They came, stepping from the chancel. Holly looked first in young +Mont's face. His lips and ears were twitching, his eyes, shifting +from his feet to the hand within his arm, stared suddenly before +them as if to face a firing party. He gave Holly the feeling that +he was spiritually intoxicated. But Fleur! Ah! That was different. +The girl was perfectly composed, prettier than ever, in her white +robes and veil over her banged dark chestnut hair; her eyelids +hovered demure over her dark hazel eyes. Outwardly, she seemed all +there. But, inwardly, where was she? As those two passed, Fleur +raised her eyelids--the restless glint of those clear whites +remained on Holly's vision as might the flutter of a caged bird's +wings. + +In Green Street Winifred stood to receive, just a little less +composed than usual. Soames' request for the use of her house had +come on her at a deeply psychological moment. Under the influence +of a remark of Prosper Profond, she had begun to exchange her +Empire for Expressionistic furniture. There were the most amusing +arrangements, with violet, green, and orange blobs and scriggles, +to be had at Mealard's. Another month and the change would have +been complete. Just now, the very "intriguing" recruits she had +enlisted did not march too well with the old guard. It was as if +her regiment were half in khaki, half in scarlet and bearskins. +But her strong and comfortable character made the best of it in a +drawing-room which typified, perhaps, more perfectly than she +imagined, the semi-bolshevised imperialism of her country. After +all, this was a day of merger, and you couldn't have too much of +it! Her eyes travelled indulgently among her guests. Soames had +gripped the back of a buhl chair; young Mont was behind that +"awfully amusing" screen, which no one as yet had been able to +explain to her. The ninth baronet had shied violently at a round +scarlet table, inlaid tinder glass with blue Australian +butterflies' wings, and was clinging to her Louis-Quinze cabinet; +Francie Forsyte had seized the new mantel-board, finely carved +with little purple grotesques on an ebony ground; George, over by +the old spinet, was holding a little sky-blue book as if about to +enter bets; Prosper Profond was twiddling the knob of the open +door, black with peacock-blue panels; and Annette's hands, close +by, were grasping her own waist; two Muskhams clung to the balcony +among the plants, as if feeling ill; Lady Mont, thin and brave- +looking, had taken up her long-handled glasses and was gazing at +the central light shade, of ivory and orange dashed with deep +magenta, as if the heavens had opened. Everybody, in fact, seemed +holding on to something. Only Fleur, still in her bridal dress, +was detached from all support, flinging her words and glances to +left and right. + +The room was full of the bubble and the squeak of conversation. +Nobody could hear anything that anybody said; which seemed of +little consequence, since no one waited for anything so slow as an +answer. Modern conversation seemed to Winifred so different from +the days of her prime, when a drawl was all the vogue. Still it +was diverting, which, of course, was all that mattered. Even the +Forsytes were talking with extreme rapidity--Fleur and +Christopher, and Imogen, and young Nicholas's youngest, Patrick. +Soames, of course, was silent; but George, by the spinet, kept up +a running commentary, and Francie, by her mantel-shelf. Winifred +drew nearer to the ninth baronet. He seemed to promise a certain +repose; his nose was fine and drooped a little, his grey +moustaches too; and she said, drawling through her smile; + +"It's rather nice, isn't it?" + +His reply shot out of his smile like a snipped bread pellet: + +"D'you remember, in Frazer, the tribe that buries the bride up to +the waist?" + +He spoke as fast as anybody! He had dark, lively little eyes, too, +all crinkled round like a Catholic priest's. Winifred felt +suddenly he might say things she would regret. + +"They're always so diverting--weddings," she murmured, and moved +on to Soames. He was curiously still, and Winifred saw at once +what was dictating his immobility. To his right was George +Forsyte, to his left Annette and Prosper Profond. He could not +move without either seeing those two together, or the reflection +of them in George Forsyte's japing eyes. He was quite right not to +be taking notice. + +"They say Timothy's sinking," he said glumly. + +"Where will you put him, Soames?" + +"Highgate." And counted on his fingers. "It'll make twelve of them +there, including wives. How do you think Fleur looks?" + +"Remarkably well." + +Soames nodded. He had never seen her look prettier, yet he could +not rid himself of the impression that this business was +unnatural--remembering still that crushed figure burrowing into +the corner of the sofa. From that night to this day he had +received from her no confidences. He knew from his chauffeur that +she had made one more attempt on Robin Hill and drawn blank--an +empty house, no one at home. He knew that she had received a +letter, but not what was in it, except that it had made her hide +herself and cry. He had remarked that she looked at him sometimes +when she thought he wasn't noticing, as if she were wondering +still what he had done--forsooth--to make those people hate him +so. Well, there it was! Annette had come back, and things had worn +on through the summer--very miserable, till suddenly Fleur had +said she was going to marry young Mont. She had shown him a little +more affection when she told Soames that. And he had yielded--what +was the good of opposing it? God knew that he had never wished to +thwart her in anything! And the young man seemed quite delirious +about her. No doubt she was in a reckless mood, and she was young, +absurdly young. But if he opposed her, he didn't know what she +would do; for all he could tell she might want to take up a +profession, become a doctor or solicitor, some nonsense. She had +no aptitude for painting, writing, music, in his view the +legitimate occupations of unmarried women, if they must do +something in these days. On the whole, she was safer married, for +he could see too well how feverish and restless she was at home. +Annette, too, had been in favour of it--Annette, from behind the +veil of his refusal to know what she was about, if she was about +anything. Annette had said: "Let her marry this young man. He is a +nice boy--not so highty-flighty as he seems." Where she got her +expressions, he didn't know--but her opinion soothed his doubts. +His wife, whatever her conduct, had clear eyes and an almost +depressing amount of common sense. He had settled fifty thousand +on Fleur, taking care that there was no cross settlement in case +it didn't turn out well. Could it turn out well? She had not got +over that other boy--he knew. They were to go to Spain for the +honeymoon. He would be even lonelier when she was gone. But later, +perhaps, she would forget, and turn to him again! + +Winifred's voice broke on his reverie. + +"Why! Of all wonders--June!" + +There, in a djibbah--what things she wore!--with her hair straying +from under a fillet, Soames saw his cousin, and Fleur going +forward to greet her. The two passed from their view out on to the +stairway. + +"Really," said Winifred, "she does the most impossible things! +Fancy HER coming!" + +"What made you ask her?" muttered Soames. + +"Because I thought she wouldn't accept, of course." + +Winifred had forgotten that behind conduct lies the main trend of +character; or, in other words, omitted to remember that Fleur was +now a "lame duck." + +On receiving her invitation, June had first thought: 'I wouldn't +go near them for the world!' and then, one morning, had awakened +from a dream of Fleur waving to her from a boat with a wild +unhappy gesture. And she had changed her mind. + +When Fleur came forward and said to her: + +"Do come up while I'm changing my dress"; she had followed up the +stairs. The girl led the way into Imogen's old bedroom, set ready +for her toilet. + +June sat down on the bed, thin and upright, like a little spirit +in the sere and yellow. Fleur locked the door. + +The girl stood before her divested of her wedding-dress. What a +pretty thing she was! + +"I suppose you think me a fool," she said, with quivering lips, +"when it was to have been Jon. But what does it matter? Michael +wants me, and I don't care. It'll get me away from home." Diving +her hand into the frills on her breast, she brought out a letter. +"Jon wrote me this." + +June read: "Lake Okanagen, British Columbia. I'm not coming back +to England. Bless you always. Jon." + +"She's made safe, you see," said Fleur. + +June handed back the letter. + +"That's not fair to Irene; she always told Jon he could do as he +wished." + +Fleur smiled bitterly. "Didn't she spoil your life too?" + +"Nobody can spoil a life, my dear. That's nonsense. Things happen, +but we bob up." + +Then with a sort of terror she saw the girl sink on her knees and +bury her face in the djibbah, with a strangled sob. + +"It's all right--all right," June murmured: "Don't! There, there!" + +But the point of the girl's chin was pressed ever closer into her +thigh, and the sound was dreadful of her sobbing. Well, well! It +had to come. She would feel better afterwards! June stroked the +short hair of that shapely head and all the scattered mother-sense +in her focussed itself and passed through the tips of her fingers +into the girl's brain. + +"Don't sit down under it, my dear," she said at last. "We can't +control life, but we can fight it. Make the best of things. I've +had to. I held on, like you; and I cried, as you're crying now. +And look at me!" + +Fleur raised her head; a sob merged suddenly into a little choked +laugh. In truth it was a thin and rather wild and wasted spirit +she was looking at, but it had brave eyes. + +"All right!" she said. "I'm sorry. I shall forget him, I suppose, +if I fly fast and far enough." + +And, scrambling to her feet, she went over to the washstand. + +June watched her removing with cold water the traces of emotion. +Save for a little becoming pinkness there was nothing left when +she stood before the mirror. June got off the bed and took a pin- +cushion in her hand. To put two pins into the wrong places was all +the vent she found for sympathy. + +"Give me a kiss," she said when Fleur was ready, and dug her chin +into the girl's warm cheek. + +"I want a whiff," said Fleur; "don't wait." + +June left her, sitting on the bed with a cigarette between her +lips and her eyes half closed, and went down-stairs. In the +doorway of the drawing-room stood Soames as if unquiet at his +daughter's tardiness. June tossed her head and passed down on to +the half landing. Her cousin Francie was standing there. + +"Look!" said June, pointing with her chin at Soames. "That man's +fatal!" + +"How do you mean," said Francie, "fatal?" + +June did not answer her. "I shan't wait to see them off," she +said. "Good-bye!" + +"Good-bye!" And Francie's eyes, of a Celtic grey, goggled. That +old feud! Really, it was quite romantic! + +Soames, moving to the well of the staircase, saw June go, and drew +a breath of satisfaction. But why didn't Fleur come? They would +miss their train. That train would bear her away from him, yet he +could not help fidgeting at the thought that they would lose it. +And then she did come, running down in her tan-coloured frock and +black velvet cap, and passed him into the drawing-room. He saw her +kiss her mother, her aunt, Val's wife, Imogen, and then come +forth, quick and pretty as ever. How would she treat him at this +last moment of her girlhood? He couldn't hope for much! + +Her lips pressed the middle of his cheek. + +"Daddy!" she said, and was past and gone. Daddy! She hadn't called +him that for years. He drew a long breath and followed slowly +down. There was all the folly with that confetti stuff and the +rest of it to go through with, yet. But he would like just to +catch her smile, if she leaned out, though they would hit her in +the eye with the shoe, if they didn't take care. Young Mont's +voice said fervently in his ear: + +"Good-bye, sir; and thank you! I'm so fearfully bucked." + +"Good-bye," he said; "don't miss your train." + +He stood on the bottom step but three, whence he could see above +the heads--the silly hats and heads. They were in the car now; and +there was that stuff, showering, and there went the shoe. A flood +of something welled up in Soames, and--he didn't know--he couldn't +see! + + + + + +XI + +THE LAST OF THE FORSYTES + + +When they came to prepare that terrific symbol Timothy Forsyte-- +the one pure individualist left, the only man who hadn't heard of +the Great War--they found him wonderful--not even death had +undermined his soundness. + +To Smither and Cook that preparation came like final evidence of +what they had never believed possible--the end of the old Forsyte +family on earth. Poor Mr. Timothy must now take a harp and sing in +the company of Miss Forsyte, Mrs. Julia, Miss Hester; with Mr. +Jolyon, Mr. Swithin, Mr. James, Mr. Roger, and Mr. Nicholas of the +party. Whether Mrs. Hayman would be there was more doubtful, +seeing that she had been cremated. Secretly Cook thought that Mr. +Timothy would be upset--he had always been so set against barrel +organs. How many times had she not said: "Drat the thing! There it +is again! Smither, you'd better run up and see what you can do." +And in her heart she would so have enjoyed the tunes, if she +hadn't known that Mr. Timothy would ring the bell in a minute and +say: "Here, take him a halfpenny and tell him to move on." Often +they had been obliged to add threepence of their own before the +man would go--Timothy had ever underrated the value of emotion. +Luckily he had taken the organs for blue-bottles in his last +years, which had been a comfort, and they had been able to enjoy +the tunes. But a harp! Cook wondered. It WAS a change! And Mr. +Timothy had never liked change. But she did not speak of this to +Smither, who did so take a line of her own in regard to heaven +that it quite put one about sometimes. + +She cried while Timothy was being prepared, and they all had +sherry afterwards out of the yearly Christmas bottle, which would +not be needed now. Ah! dear! She had been there five-and-forty +years and Smither nine-and-thirty! And now they would be going to +a tiny house in Tooting, to live on their savings and what Miss +Hester had so kindly left them--for to take fresh service after +the glorious past--No! But they WOULD like just to see Mr. Soames +again, and Mrs. Dartie, and Miss Francie, and Miss Euphemia. And +even if they had to take their own cab, they felt they must go to +the funeral. For six years Mr. Timothy had been their baby, +getting younger and younger every day, till at last he had been +too young to live. + +They spent the regulation hours of waiting in polishing and +dusting, in catching the one mouse left, and asphyxiating the last +beetle, so as to leave it nice, discussing with each other what +they would buy at the sale. Miss Ann's work-box; Miss Juley's +(that is Mrs. Julia's) seaweed album; the fire-screen Miss Hester +had crewelled; and Mr. Timothy's hair--little golden curls, glued +into a black frame. Oh! they must have those--only the price of +things had gone up so! + +It fell to Soames to issue invitations for the funeral. He had +them drawn up by Gradman in his office--only blood relations, and +no flowers. Six carriages were ordered. The Will would be read +afterwards at the house. + +He arrived at eleven o'clock to see that all was ready. At a +quarter past old Gradman came in black gloves and crape on his +hat. He and Soames stood in the drawing-room waiting. At half-past +eleven the carriages drew up in a long row. But no one else +appeared. Gradman said: + +"It surprises me, Mr. Soames. I posted them myself." + +"I don't know," said Soames; "he'd lost touch with the family." + +Soames had often noticed in old days how much more neighbourly his +family were to the dead than to the living. But, now, the way they +had flocked to Fleur's wedding and abstained from Timothy's +funeral, seemed to show some vital change. There might, of course, +be another reason; for Soames felt that if he had not known the +contents of Timothy's Will, he might have stayed away himself +through delicacy. Timothy had left a lot of money, with nobody in +particular to leave it to. They mightn't like to seem to expect +something. + +At twelve o'clock the procession left the door; Timothy alone in +the first carriage under glass. Then Soames alone; then Gradman +alone; then Cook and Smither together. They started at a walk, but +were soon trotting under a bright sky. At the entrance to Highgate +Cemetery they were delayed by service in the Chapel. Soames would +have liked to stay outside in the sunshine. He didn't believe a +word of it; on the other hand, it was a form of insurance which +could not safely be neglected, in case there might be something in +it after all. + +They walked up two and two--he and Gradman, Cook and Smither--to +the family vault. It was not very distinguished for the funeral of +the last old Forsyte. + +He took Gradman into his carriage on the way back to the Bayswater +Road with a certain glow in his heart. He had a surprise in pickle +for the old chap who had served the Forsytes four-and-fifty years +--a treat that was entirely his doing. How well he remembered +saying to Timothy the day after Aunt Hester's funeral: "Well, +Uncle Timothy, there's Gradman. He's taken a lot of trouble for +the family. What do you say to leaving him five thousand?" and his +surprise, seeing the difficulty there had been in getting Timothy +to leave anything, when Timothy had nodded. And now the old chap +would be as pleased as Punch, for Mrs. Gradman, he knew, had a +weak heart, and their son had lost a leg in the war. It was +extraordinarily gratifying to Soames to have left him five +thousand pounds of Timothy's money. They sat down together in the +little drawing-room, whose walls--like a vision of heaven--were +sky-blue and gold, with every picture-frame unnaturally bright, +and every speck of dust removed from every piece of furniture, to +read that little masterpiece,--the Will of Timothy. With his back +to the light in Aunt Hester's chair, Soames faced Gradman with his +face to the light on Aunt Ann's sofa; and, crossing his legs, +began: + +"This is the last Will and Testament of me Timothy Forsyte of The +Bower Bayswater Road London I appoint my nephew Soames Forsyte of +The Shelter Mapledurham and Thomas Gradman of 159 Folly Road +Highgate (hereinafter called my Trustees) to be the trustees and +executors of this my Will. To the said Soames Forsyte I leave the +sum of one thousand pounds free of legacy duty and to the said +Thomas Gradman I leave the sum of five thousand pounds free of +legacy duty." + +Soames paused. Old Gradman was leaning forward, convulsively +gripping a stout black knee with each of his thick hands; his +mouth had fallen open so that the gold fillings of three teeth +gleamed; his eyes were blinking; two tears rolled slowly out of +them. Soames read hastily on. + +"All the rest of my property of whatsoever description I bequeath +to my Trustees upon Trust to convert and hold the same upon the +following trusts namely. To pay thereout all my debts funeral +expenses and outgoings of any kind in connection with my Will and +to hold the residue thereof in trust for that male lineal +descendant of my father Jolyon Forsyte by his marriage with Ann +Pierce who after the decease of all lineal descendants whether +male or female of my said father by his said marriage in being at +the time of my death shall last attain the age of twenty-one years +absolutely it being my desire that my property shall be nursed to +the extreme limit permitted by the laws of England for the benefit +of such male lineal descendant as aforesaid." + +Soames read the investment and attestation clauses, and, ceasing, +looked at Gradman. The old fellow was wiping his brow with a large +handkerchief, whose brilliant colour supplied a sudden festive +tinge to the proceedings. + +"My word, Mr. Soames!" he said, and it was clear that the lawyer +in him had utterly wiped out the man: "My word! Why, there are two +babies now, and some quite young children--if one of them lives to +be eighty--it's not a great age--and add twenty-one--that's a +hundred years; and Mr. Timothy worth a hundred and fifty thousand +pound if he's worth a penny. Compound interest at five per cent +doubles you in fourteen years. In fourteen years three hundred +thousand--six hundred thousand in twenty-eight--twelve hundred +thousand in forty-two--twenty-four hundred thousand in fifty-six-- +four million eight hundred thousand in seventy--nine million six +hundred thousand in eighty-four--Why, in a hundred years it'll be +twenty million! And we shan't live to see it! It IS a Will!" + +Soames said dryly: "Anything may happen. The State might take the +lot; they're capable of anything in these days." + +"And carry five," said Gradman to himself. "I forgot--Mr. +Timothy's in Consols; we shan't get more than two per cent with +this income tax. To be on the safe side, say seven million. Still, +that's a pretty penny." + +Soames rose and handed him the Will. "You're going into the City. +Take care of that, and do what's necessary. Advertise; but there +are no debts. When's the sale?" + +"Tuesday week," said Gradman. "Life or lives in bein' and twenty- +one years afterwards--it's a long way off. But I'm glad he's left +it in the family." ... + +The sale--not at Jobson's, in view of the Victorian nature of the +effects--was far more freely attended than the funeral, though not +by Cook and Smither, for Soames had taken it on himself to give +them their hearts' desires. Winifred was present, Euphemia, and +Francie, and Eustace had come in his car. The miniatures, +Barbizons, and J. R. drawings had been bought in by Soames; and +relics of no marketable value were set aside in an off-room for +members of the family who cared to have mementos. These were the +only restrictions upon bidding characterised by an almost tragic +langour. Not one piece of furniture, no picture or porcelain +figure appealed to modern taste. The humming-birds had fallen like +autumn leaves when taken from where they had not hummed for sixty +years. It was painful to Soames to see the chairs his aunts had +sat on, the little grand piano they had practically never played, +the books whose outsides they had gazed at, the china they had +dusted, the curtains they had drawn, the hearth-rug which had +warmed their feet; above all, the beds they had lain and died in-- +sold to little dealers, and the housewives of Fulham. And yet-- +what could one do? Buy them and stick them in a lumber-room? No; +they had to go the way of all flesh and furniture, and be worn +out. But when they put up Aunt Ann's sofa and were going to knock +it down for thirty shillings, he cried out, suddenly: "Five +pounds!" The sensation was considerable, and the sofa his. + +When that little sale was over in the fusty saleroom, and those +Victorian ashes scattered, he went out into the misty October +sunshine feeling as if cosiness had died out of the world, and the +board "To Let" was up, indeed. Revolutions on the horizon; Fleur +in Spain; no comfort in Annette; no Timothy's on the Bayswater +Road. In the irritable desolation of his soul he went into the +Goupenor Gallery. That chap Jolyon's water-colours were on view +there. He went in to look down his nose at them--it might give him +some faint satisfaction. The news had trickled through from June +to Val's wife, from her to Val, from Val to his mother, from her +to Soames, that the house--the fatal house at Robin Hill--was for +sale, and Irene going to join her boy out in British Columbia, or +some such place. For one wild moment the thought had come to +Soames: 'Why shouldn't I buy it back? I meant it for my--!' No +sooner come than gone. Too lugubrious a triumph; with two many +humiliating memories for himself and Fleur. She would never live +there after what had happened. No, the place must go its way to +some peer or profiteer. It had been a bone of contention from the +first, the shell of the feud and with the woman gone, it was an +empty shell. "For Sale or To Let." With his mind's eye he could +see that board raised high above the ivied wall which he had +built. + +He passed through the first of the two rooms in the Gallery. There +was certainly a body of work! And now that the fellow was dead it +did not seem so trivial. The drawings were pleasing enough, with +quite a sense of atmosphere, and something individual in the brush +work. 'His father and my father; he and I; his child and mine!' +thought Soames. So it had gone on! And all about that woman! +Softened by the events of the past week, affected by the +melancholy beauty of the autumn day, Soames came nearer than he +had ever been to realisation of that truth--passing the +understanding of a Forsyte pure--that the body of Beauty has a +spiritual essence, uncapturable save by a devotion which thinks +not of self. After all, he was near that truth in his devotion to +his daughter; perhaps that made him understand a little how he had +missed the prize. And there, among the drawings of his kinsman, +who had attained to that which he had found beyond his reach, he +thought of him and her with a tolerance which surprised him. But +he did not buy a drawing. + +Just as he passed the seat of custom on his return to the outer +air he met with a contingency which had not been entirely absent +from his mind when he went into the Gallery--Irene, herself, +coming in. So she had not gone yet, and was still paying farewell +visits to that fellow's remains! He subdued the little involuntary +leap of his subconsciousness, the mechanical reaction of his +senses to the charm of this once-owned woman, and passed her with +averted eyes. But when he had gone by he could not for the life of +him help looking back. This, then, was finality--the heat and +stress of his life, the madness and the longing thereof, the long, +the only defeat he had known, would be over when she faded from +his view this time; even such memories had their own queer aching +value. She, too, was looking back. Suddenly she lifted her gloved +hand, her lips smiled faintly, her dark eyes seemed to speak. It +was the turn of Soames to make no answer to that smile and that +little farewell wave; he went out into the fashionable street +quivering from head to foot. He knew what she had meant to say: +"Now that I am going for ever out of the reach of you and yours-- +forgive me; I wish you well." That was the meaning; last sign of +that terrible reality--passing morality, duty, common sense--her +aversion from him who had owned her body but had never touched her +spirit or her heart. It hurt; yes--more than if she had kept her +mask unmoved, her hand unlifted. + +Three days later, in that fast-yellowing October, Soames took a +taxi-cab to Highgate Cemetery and mounted through its white forest +to the Forsyte vault. Close to the cedar, above catacombs and +columbaria, tall, ugly, and individual, it looked like an apex of +the competitive system. He could remember a discussion wherein +Swithin had advocated the addition to its face of the pheasant +proper. The proposal had been rejected in favour of a wreath in +stone, above the stark words: "The family vault of Jolyon Forsyte: +1850." It was in good order. All trace of the recent interment had +been removed, and its sober grey gloomed reposefully in the +sunshine. The whole family lay there now, except old Jolyon's +wife, who had gone back under a contract to her own family vault +in Suffolk; old Jolyon himself lying at Robin Hill; and Susan +Hayman, cremated so that none knew where she might be. Soames +gazed at it with satisfaction--massive, needing little attention; +and this was important, for he was well aware that no one would +attend to it when he himself was gone, and he would have to be +looking out for lodgings soon. He might have twenty years before +him, but one never knew. Twenty years without an aunt or uncle, +with a wife of whom one had better not know anything, with a +daughter gone from home. His mood inclined to melancholy and +retrospection. This cemetery was quite full now--of people with +extraordinary names, buried in extraordinary taste. Still, they +had a fine view up here, right over London. Annette had once given +him a story to read by that Frenchman, Maupassant--a most +lugubrious concern, where all the skeletons emerged from their +graves one night, and all the pious inscriptions on the stones +were altered to descriptions of their sins. Not a true story at +all. He didn't know about the French, but there was not much real +harm in English people except their teeth and their taste, which +were certainly deplorable. "The family vault of Jolyon Forsyte, +1850." A lot of people had been buried here since then--a lot of +English life crumbled to mould and dust! The boom of an airplane +passing under the gold-tinted clouds caused him to lift his eyes. +The deuce of a lot of expansion had gone on. But it all came back +to a cemetery--to a name and a date on a tomb. And he thought with +a curious pride that he and his family had done little or nothing +to help this feverish expansion. Good solid middlemen, they had +gone to work with dignity to manage and possess. "Superior +Dosset," indeed, had built, in a dreadful, and Jolyon painted, in +a doubtful period, but so far as he remembered not another of them +all had soiled his hands by creating anything--unless you counted +Val Dartie and his horse-breeding. Collectors, solicitors, +barristers, merchants, publishers, accountants, directors, land +agents, even soldiers--there they had been! The country had +expanded, as it were, in spite of them. They had checked, +controlled, defended, and taken advantage of the process--and when +you considered how "Superior Dosset" had begun life with next to +nothing, and his lineal descendants already owned what old Gradman +estimated at between a million and a million and a half, it was +not so bad! And yet he sometimes felt as if the family bolt was +shot, their possessive instinct dying out. They seemed unable to +make money--this fourth generation; they were going into art, +literature, farming, or the army; or just living on what was left +them--they had no push and no tenacity. They would die out if they +didn't take care. + +Soames turned from the vault and faced towards the breeze. The air +up here would be delicious if only he could rid his nerves of the +feeling that mortality was in it. He gazed restlessly at the +crosses and the urns, the angels, the "immortelles," the flowers, +gaudy or withering; and suddenly he noticed a spot which seemed so +different from anything else up there that he was obliged to walk +the few necessary yards and look at it. A sober corner, with a +massive queer-shaped cross of grey rough-hewn granite, guarded by +four dark yew-trees. The spot was free from the pressure of the +other graves, having a little box-hedged garden on the far side, +arid in front a goldening birch-tree. This oasis in the desert of +conventional graves appealed to the aesthetic sense of Soames, and +he sat down there in the sunshine. Through those trembling gold +birch leaves he gazed out at London, and yielded to the waves of +memory. He thought of Irene in Montpellier Square, when her hair +was rusty-golden and her white shoulders his--Irene, the prize of +his love--passion, resistant to his ownership. He saw Bosinney's +body lying in that white mortuary, and Irene sitting on the sofa +looking at her picture with the eyes of a dying bird. Again he +thought of her by the little green Niobe in the Bois de Boulogne, +once more rejecting him. His fancy took him on beside his drifting +river on the November day when Fleur was to be born, took him to +the dead leaves floating on the green-tinged water and the snake- +headed weed for ever swaying and nosing, sinuous, blind, tethered. +And on again to the window opened to the cold starry night above +Hyde Park, with his father lying dead. His fancy darted to that +picture of "The Future Town," to that boy's and Fleur's first +meeting; to the blueish trail of Prosper Profond's cigar, and +Fleur in the window pointing down to where the fellow prowled. To +the sight of Irene and that dead fellow sitting side by side in +the Stand at Lord's. To her and that boy at Robin Hill. To the +sofa, where Fleur lay crushed up in the corner; to her lips +pressed into his cheek, and her farewell "Daddy." And suddenly he +saw again Irene's grey-gloved hand waving its last gesture of +release. + +He sat there a long time dreaming his career, faithful to the scut +of his possessive instinct, warming himself even with its +failures. + +"To Let"--the Forsyte age and way of life, when a man owned his +soul, his investments, and his woman, without check or question. +And now the State had, or would have, his investments, his woman +had herself, and God knew who had his soul. "To Let"--that sane +and simple creed! + +The waters of change were foaming in, carrying the promise of new +forms only when their destructive flood should have passed its +full. He sat there, subconscious of them, but with his thoughts +resolutely set on the past--as a man might ride into a wild night +with his face to the tail of his galloping horse. Athwart the +Victorian dykes the waters were rolling on property, manners, and +morals, on melody and the old forms of art--waters bringing to his +mouth a salt taste as of blood, lapping to the foot of this +Highgate Hill where Victorianism lay buried. And sitting there, +high up on its most individual spot, Soames--like a figure of +Investment--refused their restless sounds. Instinctively he would +not fight them--there was in him too much primeval wisdom, of Man +the possessive animal. They would quiet down when they had +fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and destroying; when +the creations and the properties of others were sufficiently +broken and dejected--they would lapse and ebb, and fresh forms +would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of change-- +the instinct of Home. + +"Je m'en fiche," said Prosper Profond. Soames did not say "Je m'en +fiche"--it was French, and the fellow was a thorn in his side--but +deep down he knew that change was only the interval of death +between two forms of life, destruction necessary to make room for +fresher property. What though the board was up, and cosiness to +let?--some one would come along and take it again some day. + +And only one thing really troubled him, sitting there--the +melancholy craving in his heart--because the sun was like +enchantment on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch +leaves, and the wind's rustle was so gentle, and the yew-tree +green so dark, and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky. + +Ah! He might wish and wish and never get it--the beauty and the +loving in the world! + +THE END + + + +End of The Project Gutenberg Etext of To Let, by John Galsworthy + diff --git a/old/toltg10.zip b/old/toltg10.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e223dae --- /dev/null +++ b/old/toltg10.zip |