“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 around, 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
summerhouse 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 never
been much more than a mistress, and he was getting indifferent to
that side of things! It was odd how, with all this ingrained care for
moderation and secure investment, Soames ever put his emotional eggs
into one basket. First Irene—now Fleur. He was dimly 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 him 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—Nature was a queer
thing! The thunder rumbled and crashed, travelling east along a 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—-! But 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 toward 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 afterward, 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
sea-piece, 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 eyes. 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 Christ-like silence which admirably
suited his youthful, round, broad cheek-boned 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 Christ-like 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 best 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 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 little
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!'
“What do you want me to do then?” 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 afterward 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 tomorrow. 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 toward the
door.
“Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!... Little piece of fashion!” muttered June, closing the
door. “That family!” And she marched back toward her studio. Boris
Strumolowski had regained his Christ-like 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 afterward 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?”
“Do I?”
“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
toward 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 schoolfellows. 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 weekend 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—!”
“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 on to 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-goodbye!”
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 gushed, 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 hayfields fanned her still
gushed 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.—THE 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 inaccessibly entrenched in a brown study; her father contemplating
fate in 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.
“Poor 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'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.”
His answer was a sigh.
“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 toward 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
upstairs. 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 little 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, please?”
The Austrian shook her head.
“Your father a very nice old 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 Yes, 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?”
“Yes, 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 shall
never forget his letting me go 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, then, more than the most elaborate explanations. So
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? You know, 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. Everybody—everybody was
against him and Fleur! It all strengthened the appeal of her words:
“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! Having promenaded 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's! 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 voice 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 a 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—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, for some minutes, 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 pace. 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 rewards
were—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 ever-welcome 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 cobblestones, and stinking straw on the
floor of your cab. And old Timothy—what could he not have told 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 should
n'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”!