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!"