The Forsyte saga - Complete
tame; besides, it required woods and animals, of which he had
none in his nursery, except his two cats, Fitz and Puck Forsyte,
who permitted no liberties. For Tom Brown he was as yet too
young. There was relief in the house when, after the fourth week,
he was permitted to go down and out.
The month being March the trees were exceptionally like the masts
of ships, and for little Jon that was a wonderful Spring,
extremely hard on his knees, suits, and the patience of “Da,” who
had the washing and reparation of his clothes. Every morning the
moment his breakfast was over, he could be viewed by his mother
and father, whose windows looked out that way, coming from the
study, crossing the terrace, climbing the old oak tree, his face
resolute and his hair bright. He began the day thus because there
was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The old tree's
variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant
mast, and he could always come down by the halyards—or ropes of
the swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to
the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French
plums—provision enough for a jolly-boat at least—and eat it in
some imaginative way; then, armed to the teeth with gun, pistols,
and sword, he would begin the serious climbing of the morning,
encountering by the way innumerable slavers, Indians, pirates,
leopards, and bears. He was seldom seen at that hour of the day
without a cutlass in his teeth (like Dick Needham) amid the rapid
explosion of copper caps. And many were the gardeners he brought
down with yellow peas shot out of his little gun. He lived a life
of the most violent action.
“Jon,” said his father to his mother, under the oak tree, “is
terrible. I'm afraid he's going to turn out a sailor, or
something hopeless. Do you see any sign of his appreciating
beauty?”
“Not the faintest.”
“Well, thank heaven he's no turn for wheels or engines! I can
bear anything but that. But I wish he'd take more interest in
Nature.”
“He's imaginative, Jolyon.”
“Yes, in a sanguinary way. Does he love anyone just now?”
“No; only everyone. There never was anyone born more loving or
more lovable than Jon.”
“Being your boy, Irene.”
At this moment little Jon, lying along a branch high above them,
brought them down with two peas; but that fragment of talk
lodged, thick, in his small gizzard. Loving, lovable,
imaginative, sanguinary!
The leaves also were thick by now, and it was time for his
birthday, which, occurring every year on the twelfth of May, was
always memorable for his chosen dinner of sweetbread, mushrooms,
macaroons, and ginger beer.
Between that eighth birthday, however, and the afternoon when he
stood in the July radiance at the turning of the stairway,
several important things had happened.
“Da,” worn out by washing his knees, or moved by that mysterious
instinct which forces even nurses to desert their nurslings, left
the very day after his birthday in floods of tears “to be
married”—of all things—“to a man.” Little Jon, from whom it had
been kept, was inconsolable for an afternoon. It ought not to
have been kept from him! Two large boxes of soldiers and some
artillery, together with The Young Buglers, which had been among
his birthday presents, cooperated with his grief in a sort of
conversion, and instead of seeking adventures in person and
risking his own life, he began to play imaginative games, in
which he risked the lives of countless tin soldiers, marbles,
stones and beans. Of these forms of “chair a canon” he made
collections, and, using them alternately, fought the Peninsular,
the Seven Years, the Thirty Years, and other wars, about which he
had been reading of late in a big History of Europe which had
been his grandfather's. He altered them to suit his genius, and
fought them all over the floor in his day nursery, so that nobody
could come in, for fearing of disturbing Gustavus Adolphus, King
of Sweden, or treading on an army of Austrians. Because of the
sound of the word he was passionately addicted to the Austrians,
and finding there were so few battles in which they were
successful he had to invent them in his games. His favourite
generals were Prince Eugene, the Archduke Charles and
Wallenstein. Tilly and Mack (“music-hall turns” he heard his
father call them one day, whatever that might mean) one really
could not love very much, Austrian though they were. For euphonic
reasons, too, he doted on Turenne.
This phase, which caused his parents anxiety, because it kept him
indoors when he ought to have been out, lasted through May and
half of June, till his father killed it by bringing home to him
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. When he read those books
something happened in him, and he went out of doors again in
passionate quest of a river. There being none on the premises at
Robin Hill, he had to make one out of the pond, which fortunately
had water lilies, dragonflies, gnats, bullrushes, and three small
willow trees. On this pond, after his father and Garratt had
ascertained by sounding that it had a reliable bottom and was
nowhere more than two feet deep, he was allowed a little
collapsible canoe, in which he spent hours and hours paddling,
and lying down out of sight of Indian Joe and other enemies. On
the shore of the pond, too, he built himself a wigwam about four
feet square, of old biscuit tins, roofed in by boughs. In this he
would make little fires, and cook the birds he had not shot with
his gun, hunting in the coppice and fields, or the fish he did
not catch in the pond because there were none. This occupied the
rest of June and that July, when his father and mother were away
in Ireland. He led a lonely life of “make believe” during those
five weeks of summer weather, with gun, wigwam, water and canoe;
and, however hard his active little brain tried to keep the sense
of beauty away, she did creep in on him for a second now and
then, perching on the wing of a dragon-fly, glistening on the
water lilies, or brushing his eyes with her blue as he lay on his
back in ambush.
“Auntie” June, who had been left in charge, had a “grown-up” in
the house, with a cough and a large piece of putty which he was
making into a face; so she hardly ever came down to see him in
the pond. Once, however, she brought with her two other
“grown-ups.” Little Jon, who happened to have painted his naked
self bright blue and yellow in stripes out of his father's
water-colour box, and put some duck's feathers in his hair, saw
them coming, and—ambushed himself among the willows. As he had
foreseen, they came at once to his wigwam and knelt down to look
inside, so that with a blood-curdling yell he was able to take
the scalps of “Auntie” June and the woman “grown-up” in an almost
complete manner before they kissed him. The names of the two
grown-ups were “Auntie” Holly and “Uncle” Val, who had a brown
face and a little limp, and laughed at him terribly. He took a
fancy to “Auntie” Holly, who seemed to be a sister too; but they
both went away the same afternoon and he did not see them again.
Three days before his father and mother were to come home
“Auntie” June also went off in a great hurry, taking the
“grown-up” who coughed and his piece of putty; and Mademoiselle
said: “Poor man, he was veree ill. I forbid you to go into his
room, Jon.” Little Jon, who rarely did things merely because he
was told not to, refrained from going, though he was bored and
lonely. In truth the day of the pond was past, and he was filled
to the brim of his soul with restlessness and the want of
something—not a tree, not a gun—something soft. Those last two
days had seemed months in spite of Cast Up by the Sea, wherein he
was reading about Mother Lee and her terrible wrecking bonfire.
He had gone up and down the stairs perhaps a hundred times in
those two days, and often from the day nursery, where he slept
now, had stolen into his mother's room, looked at everything,
without touching, and on into the dressing-room; and standing on
one leg beside the bath, like Slingsby, had whispered:
“Ho, ho, ho! Dog my cats!” mysteriously, to bring luck. Then,
stealing back, he had opened his mother's wardrobe, and taken a
long sniff which seemed to bring him nearer to—he didn't know
what.
He had done this just before he stood in the streak of sunlight,
debating in which of the several ways he should slide down the
banisters. They all seemed silly, and in a sudden languor he
began descending the steps one by one. During that descent he
could remember his father quite distinctly—the short grey beard,
the deep eyes twinkling, the furrow between them, the funny
smile, the thin figure which always seemed so tall to little Jon;
but his mother he couldn't see. All that represented her was
something swaying with two dark eyes looking back at him; and the
scent of her wardrobe.
Bella was in the hall, drawing aside the big curtains, and
opening the front door. Little Jon said, wheedling,
“Bella!”
“Yes, Master Jon.”
“Do let's have tea under the oak tree when they come; I know
they'd like it best.”
“You mean you'd like it best.”
Little Jon considered.
“No, they would, to please me.”
Bella smiled. “Very well, I'll take it out if you'll stay quiet
here and not get into mischief before they come.”
Little Jon sat down on the bottom step, and nodded. Bella came
close, and looked him over.
“Get up!” she said.
Little Jon got up. She scrutinized him behind; he was not green,
and his knees seemed clean.
“All right!” she said. “My! Aren't you brown? Give me a kiss!”
And little Jon received a peck on his hair.
“What jam?” he asked. “I'm so tired of waiting.”
“Gooseberry and strawberry.”
Num! They were his favourites!
When she was gone he sat still for quite a minute. It was quiet
in the big hall open to its East end so that he could see one of
his trees, a brig sailing very slowly across the upper lawn. In
the outer hall shadows were slanting from the pillars. Little Jon
got up, jumped one of them, and walked round the clump of iris
plants which filled the pool of grey-white marble in the centre.
The flowers were pretty, but only smelled a very little. He stood
in the open doorway and looked out. Suppose!—suppose they didn't
come! He had waited so long that he felt he could not bear that,
and his attention slid at once from such finality to the dust
motes in the bluish sunlight coming in: Thrusting his hand up, he
tried to catch some. Bella ought to have dusted that piece of
air! But perhaps they weren't dust—only what sunlight was made
of, and he looked to see whether the sunlight out of doors was