Two days of rain, and summer set in bland and sunny. Old Jolyon walked
and talked with Holly. At first he felt taller and full of a new vigour;
then he felt restless. Almost every afternoon they would enter the
coppice, and walk as far as the log. 'Well, she's not there!' he would
think, 'of course not!' And he would feel a little shorter, and drag his
feet walking up the hill home, with his hand clapped to his left side.
Now and then the thought would move in him: 'Did she come--or did I
dream it?' and he would stare at space, while the dog Balthasar stared
at him. Of course she would not come again! He opened the letters from
Spain with less excitement. They were not returning till July; he felt,
oddly, that he could bear it. Every day at dinner he screwed up his eyes
and looked at where she had sat. She was not there, so he unscrewed his
eyes again.
On the seventh afternoon he thought: 'I must go up and get some boots.'
He ordered Beacon, and set out. Passing from Putney towards Hyde Park
he reflected: 'I might as well go to Chelsea and see her.' And he called
out: “Just drive me to where you took that lady the other night.” The
coachman turned his broad red face, and his juicy lips answered: “The
lady in grey, sir?”
“Yes, the lady in grey.” What other ladies were there! Stodgy chap!
The carriage stopped before a small three-storied block of flats,
standing a little back from the river. With a practised eye old Jolyon
saw that they were cheap. 'I should think about sixty pound a year,' he
mused; and entering, he looked at the name-board. The name 'Forsyte' was
not on it, but against 'First Floor, Flat C' were the words: 'Mrs.
Irene Heron.' Ah! She had taken her maiden name again! And somehow this
pleased him. He went upstairs slowly, feeling his side a little.
He stood a moment, before ringing, to lose the feeling of drag and
fluttering there. She would not be in! And then--Boots! The thought was
black. What did he want with boots at his age? He could not wear out all
those he had.
“Your mistress at home?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”
“Yes, sir, will you come this way?”
Old Jolyon followed a very little maid--not more than sixteen one would
say--into a very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds were drawn.
It held a cottage piano and little else save a vague fragrance and
good taste. He stood in the middle, with his top hat in his hand, and
thought: 'I expect she's very badly off!' There was a mirror above the
fireplace, and he saw himself reflected. An old-looking chap! He heard
a rustle, and turned round. She was so close that his moustache almost
brushed her forehead, just under her hair.
“I was driving up,” he said. “Thought I'd look in on you, and ask you
how you got up the other night.”
And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved. She was really glad to
see him, perhaps.
“Would you like to put on your hat and come for a drive in the Park?”
But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned. The Park! James
and Emily! Mrs. Nicholas, or some other member of his precious family
would be there very likely, prancing up and down. And they would go and
wag their tongues about having seen him with her, afterwards. Better
not! He did not wish to revive the echoes of the past on
Forsyte 'Change. He removed a white hair from the lapel of his
closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed his hand over his cheeks,
moustache, and square chin. It felt very hollow there under the
cheekbones. He had not been eating much lately--he had better get that
little whippersnapper who attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she
had come back and when they were in the carriage, he said:
“Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens instead?” and added with
a twinkle: “No prancing up and down there,” as if she had been in the
secret of his thoughts.
Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts, and strolled
towards the water.
“You've gone back to your maiden name, I see,” he said: “I'm not sorry.”
She slipped her hand under his arm: “Has June forgiven me, Uncle
Jolyon?”
He answered gently: “Yes--yes; of course, why not?”
“And have you?”
“I? I forgave you as soon as I saw how the land really lay.” And perhaps
he had; his instinct had always been to forgive the beautiful.
She drew a deep breath. “I never regretted--I couldn't. Did you ever
love very deeply, Uncle Jolyon?”
At that strange question old Jolyon stared before him. Had he? He did
not seem to remember that he ever had. But he did not like to say this
to the young woman whose hand was touching his arm, whose life was
suspended, as it were, by memory of a tragic love. And he thought: 'If
I had met you when I was young I--I might have made a fool of myself,
perhaps.' And a longing to escape in generalities beset him.
“Love's a queer thing,” he said, “fatal thing often. It was the
Greeks--wasn't it?--made love into a goddess; they were right, I dare
say, but then they lived in the Golden Age.”
“Phil adored them.”
Phil! The word jarred him, for suddenly--with his power to see all round
a thing, he perceived why she was putting up with him like this. She
wanted to talk about her lover! Well! If it was any pleasure to her! And
he said: “Ah! There was a bit of the sculptor in him, I fancy.”
“Yes. He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the whole-hearted way the
Greeks gave themselves to art.”
Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for
symmetry--clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer eyes of
his, and high cheek-bones--Symmetry?
“You're of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon.”
Old Jolyon looked round at her. Was she chaffing him? No, her eyes
were soft as velvet. Was she flattering him? But if so, why? There was
nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.
“Phil thought so. He used to say: 'But I can never tell him that I
admire him.'.
Ah! There it was again. Her dead lover; her desire to talk of him! And
he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories, half grateful, as
if he recognised what a link they were between herself and him.
“He was a very talented young fellow,” he murmured. “It's hot; I feel
the heat nowadays. Let's sit down.”
They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves covered
them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon. A pleasure to sit there
and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with him. And the wish to
increase that liking, if he could, made him go on:
“I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw. He'd be at his best
with you. His ideas of art were a little new--to me “--he had stiffed
the word 'fangled.'
“Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty.” Old Jolyon
thought: 'The devil he did!' but answered with a twinkle: “Well, I have,
or I shouldn't be sitting here with you.” She was fascinating when she
smiled with her eyes, like that!
“He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old. Phil had
real insight.”
He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out of a
longing to talk of her dead lover--not a bit; and yet it was precious
to hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart which--quite true!--had
never grown old. Was that because--unlike her and her dead lover, he had
never loved to desperation, had always kept his balance, his sense of
symmetry. Well! It had left him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty.
And he thought, 'If I were a painter or a sculptor! But I'm an old chap.
Make hay while the sun shines.'
A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at the
edge of the shadow from their tree. The sunlight fell cruelly on their
pale, squashed, unkempt young faces. “We're an ugly lot!” said old
Jolyon suddenly. “It amazes me to see how--love triumphs over that.”
“Love triumphs over everything!”
“The young think so,” he muttered.
“Love has no age, no limit, and no death.”
With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so
large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life! But this
extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he said: “Well,
if it had limits, we shouldn't be born; for by George! it's got a lot to
put up with.”
Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff. The great
clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often got a rush of
blood to the head--his circulation was not what it had been.
She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she murmured:
“It's strange enough that I'm alive.”
Those words of Jo's 'Wild and lost' came back to him.
“Ah!” he said: “my son saw you for a moment--that day.”
“Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a second it
was--Phil.”
Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her hand over them, took it
away again, and went on calmly: “That night I went to the Embankment; a
woman caught me by the dress. She told me about herself. When one knows
that others suffer, one's ashamed.”
“One of those?”
She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of one who
has never known a struggle with desperation. Almost against his will he
muttered: “Tell me, won't you?”
“I didn't care whether I lived or died. When you're like that, Fate
ceases to want to kill you. She took care of me three days--she never
left me. I had no money. That's why I do what I can for them, now.”
But old Jolyon was thinking: 'No money!' What fate could compare with
that? Every other was involved in it.
“I wish you had come to me,” he said. “Why didn't you?” But Irene did
not answer.
“Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose? Or was it June who kept you
away? How are you getting on now?” His eyes involuntarily swept her
body. Perhaps even now she was--! And yet she wasn't thin--not really!
“Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough.” The answer did
not reassure him; he had lost confidence. And that fellow Soames! But
his sense of justice stifled condemnation. No, she would certainly have
died rather than take another penny from him. Soft as she looked, there
must be strength in her somewhere--strength and fidelity. But what
business had young Bosinney to have got run over and left her stranded
like this!
“Well, you must come to me now,” he said, “for anything you want, or I
shall be quite cut up.” And putting on his hat, he rose. “Let's go and
get some tea. I told that lazy chap to put the horses up for an hour,
and come for me at your place. We'll take a cab presently; I can't walk
as I used to.”
He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the gardens--the sound
of her voice, the glancing of her eyes, the subtle beauty of a charming
form moving beside him. He enjoyed their tea at Ruffel's in the High
Street, and came out thence with a great box of chocolates swung on his
little finger. He enjoyed the drive back to Chelsea in a hansom, smoking
his cigar. She had promised to come down next Sunday and play to him
again, and already in thought he was plucking carnations and early roses
for her to carry back to town. It was a pleasure to give her a little
pleasure, if it WERE pleasure from an old chap like him! The carriage
was already there when they arrived. Just like that fellow, who was
always late when he was wanted! Old Jolyon went in for a minute to
say good-bye. The little dark hall of the flat was impregnated with a
disagreeable odour of patchouli, and on a bench against the wall--its
only furniture--he saw a figure sitting. He heard Irene say softly:
“Just one minute.” In the little drawing-room when the door was shut, he
asked gravely: “One of your protegees?”
“Yes. Now thanks to you, I can do something for her.”
He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength had frightened
so many in its time. The idea of her thus actually in contact with this
outcast grieved and frightened him. What could she do for them? Nothing.
Only soil and make trouble for herself, perhaps. And he said: “Take
care, my dear! The world puts the worst construction on everything.”
“I know that.”
He was abashed by her quiet smile. “Well then--Sunday,” he murmured:
“Good-bye.”
She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.
“Good-bye,” he said again; “take care of yourself.” And he went out,
not looking towards the figure on the bench. He drove home by way of
Hammersmith; that he might stop at a place he knew of and tell them to
send her in two dozen of their best Burgundy. She must want picking-up
sometimes! Only in Richmond Park did he remember that he had gone up to
order himself some boots, and was surprised that he could have had so
paltry an idea.