The Forsyte saga - Complete
dark, which suddenly changes shape and position. Jon saw the
fixed object; it had dark eyes and passably dark hair, and
changed its position, but never its shape. The knowledge that
between him and that object there was already a secret
understanding (however impossible to understand) thrilled him so
that he waited feverishly, and began to copy out his poem—which
of course he would never dare to—show her—till the sound of
horses' hoofs roused him, and, leaning from his window, he saw
her riding forth with Val. It was clear that she wasted no time,
but the sight filled him with grief. He wasted his. If he had not
bolted, in his fearful ecstasy, he might have been asked to go
too. And from his window he sat and watched them disappear,
appear again in the chine of the road, vanish, and emerge once
more for a minute clear on the outline of the Down. 'Silly
brute!' he thought; 'I always miss my chances.'
Why couldn't he be self-confident and ready? And, leaning his
chin on his hands, he imagined the ride he might have had with
her. A week-end was but a week-end, and he had missed three hours
of it. Did he know any one except himself who would have been
such a flat? He did not.
He dressed for dinner early, and was first down. He would miss no
more. But he missed Fleur, who came down last. He sat opposite
her at dinner, and it was terrible—impossible to say anything for
fear of saying the wrong thing, impossible to keep his eyes fixed
on her in the only natural way; in sum, impossible to treat
normally one with whom in fancy he had already been over the
hills and far away; conscious, too, all the time, that he must
seem to her, to all of them, a dumb gawk. Yes, it was terrible!
And she was talking so well—swooping with swift wing this way and
that. Wonderful how she had learned an art which he found so
disgustingly difficult. She must think him hopeless indeed!
His sister's eyes, fixed on him with a certain astonishment,
obliged him at last to look at Fleur; but instantly her eyes,
very wide and eager, seeming to say, “Oh! for goodness' sake!”
obliged him to look at Val, where a grin obliged him to look at
his cutlet—that, at least, had no eyes, and no grin, and he ate
it hastily.
“Jon is going to be a farmer,” he heard Holly say; “a farmer and
a poet.”
He glanced up reproachfully, caught the comic lift of her eyebrow
just like their father's, laughed, and felt better.
Val recounted the incident of Monsieur Prosper Profond; nothing
could have been more favourable, for, in relating it, he regarded
Holly, who in turn regarded him, while Fleur seemed to be
regarding with a slight frown some thought of her own, and Jon
was really free to look at her at last. She had on a white frock,
very simple and well made; her arms were bare, and her hair had a
white rose in it. In just that swift moment of free vision, after
such intense discomfort, Jon saw her sublimated, as one sees in
the dark a slender white fruit-tree; caught her like a verse of
poetry flashed before the eyes of the mind, or a tune which
floats out in the distance and dies. He wondered giddily how old
she was—she seemed so much more self-possessed and experienced
than himself. Why mustn't he say they had met? He remembered
suddenly his mother's face; puzzled, hurt-looking, when she
answered: “Yes, they're relations, but we don't know them.”
Impossible that his mother, who loved beauty, should not admire
Fleur if she did know her.
Alone with Val after dinner, he sipped port deferentially and
answered the advances of this new-found brother-in-law. As to
riding (always the first consideration with Val) he could have
the young chestnut, saddle and unsaddle it himself, and generally
look after it when he brought it in. Jon said he was accustomed
to all that at home, and saw that he had gone up one in his
host's estimation.
“Fleur,” said Val, “can't ride much yet, but she's keen. Of
course, her father doesn't know a horse from a cart-wheel. Does
your Dad ride?”
“He used to; but now he's—you know, he's—” He stopped, so hating
the word “old.” His father was old, and yet not old; no—never!
“Quite,” muttered Val. “I used to know your brother up at Oxford,
ages ago, the one who died in the Boer War. We had a fight in New
College Gardens. That was a queer business,” he added, musing; “a
good deal came out of it.”
Jon's eyes opened wide; all was pushing him toward historical
research, when his sister's voice said gently from the doorway:
“Come along, you two,” and he rose, his heart pushing him toward
something far more modern.
Fleur having declared that it was “simply too wonderful to stay
indoors,” they all went out. Moonlight was frosting the dew, and
an old sundial threw a long shadow. Two box hedges at right
angles, dark and square, barred off the orchard. Fleur turned
through that angled opening.
“Come on!” she called. Jon glanced at the others, and followed.
She was running among the trees like a ghost. All was lovely and
foamlike above her, and there was a scent of old trunks, and of
nettles. She vanished. He thought he had lost her, then almost
ran into her standing quite still.
“Isn't it jolly?” she cried, and Jon answered:
“Rather!”
She reached up, twisted off a blossom and, twirling it in her
fingers, said:
“I suppose I can call you Jon?”
“I should think so just.”
“All right! But you know there's a feud between our families?”
Jon stammered: “Feud? Why?”
“It's ever so romantic and silly. That's why I pretended we
hadn't met. Shall we get up early to-morrow morning and go for a
walk before breakfast and have it out? I hate being slow about
things, don't you?”
Jon murmured a rapturous assent.
“Six o'clock, then. I think your mother's beautiful”
Jon said fervently: “Yes, she is.”
“I love all kinds of beauty,” went on Fleur, “when it's exciting.
I don't like Greek things a bit.”
“What! Not Euripides?”
“Euripides? Oh! no, I can't bear Greek plays; they're so long. I
think beauty's always swift. I like to look at one picture, for
instance, and then run off. I can't bear a lot of things
together. Look!” She held up her blossom in the moonlight.
“That's better than all the orchard, I think.”
And, suddenly, with her other hand she caught Jon's.
“Of all things in the world, don't you think caution's the most
awful? Smell the moonlight!”
She thrust the blossom against his face; Jon agreed giddily that
of all things in the world caution was the worst, and bending
over, kissed the hand which held his.
“That's nice and old-fashioned,” said Fleur calmly. “You're
frightfully silent, Jon. Still I like silence when it's swift.”
She let go his hand. “Did you think I dropped my handkerchief on
purpose?”
“No!” cried Jon, intensely shocked.
“Well, I did, of course. Let's get back, or they'll think we're
doing this on purpose too.” And again she ran like a ghost among
the trees. Jon followed, with love in his heart, Spring in his
heart, and over all the moonlit white unearthly blossom. They
came out where they had gone in, Fleur walking demurely.
“It's quite wonderful in there,” she said dreamily to Holly.
Jon preserved silence, hoping against hope that she might be
thinking it swift.
She bade him a casual and demure good-night, which made him think
he had been dreaming....
In her bedroom Fleur had flung off her gown, and, wrapped in a
shapeless garment, with the white flower still in her hair, she
looked like a mousme, sitting cross-legged on her bed, writing by
candlelight.
“DEAREST CHERRY,
“I believe I'm in love. I've got it in the neck, only the feeling
is really lower down. He's a second cousin-such a child, about
six months older and ten years younger than I am. Boys always
fall in love with their seniors, and girls with their juniors or
with old men of forty. Don't laugh, but his eyes are the truest
things I ever saw; and he's quite divinely silent! We had a most
romantic first meeting in London under the Vospovitch Juno. And
now he's sleeping in the next room and the moonlight's on the
blossom; and to-morrow morning, before anybody's awake, we're
going to walk off into Down fairyland. There's a feud between our
families, which makes it really exciting. Yes! and I may have to
use subterfuge and come on you for invitations—if so, you'll know
why! My father doesn't want us to know each other, but I can't
help that. Life's too short. He's got the most beautiful mother,
with lovely silvery hair and a young face with dark eyes. I'm
staying with his sister—who married my cousin; it's all mixed up,
but I mean to pump her to-morrow. We've often talked about love
being a spoil-sport; well, that's all tosh, it's the beginning of
sport, and the sooner you feel it, my dear, the better for you.
“Jon (not simplified spelling, but short for Jolyon, which is a
name in my family, they say) is the sort that lights up and goes
out; about five feet ten, still growing, and I believe he's going
to be a poet. If you laugh at me I've done with you forever. I
perceive all sorts of difficulties, but you know when I really
want a thing I get it. One of the chief effects of love is that
you see the air sort of inhabited, like seeing a face in the
moon; and you feel—you feel dancey and soft at the same time,
with a funny sensation—like a continual first sniff of
orange—blossom—Just above your stays. This is my first, and I
feel as if it were going to be my last, which is absurd, of
course, by all the laws of Nature and morality. If you mock me I
will smite you, and if you tell anybody I will never forgive you.
So much so, that I almost don't think I'll send this letter.
Anyway, I'll sleep over it. So good-night, my Cherry—oh!
“Your,
“FLEUR.”
VIII.—IDYLL ON GRASS
When those two young Forsytes emerged from the chine lane, and
set their faces east toward the sun, there was not a cloud in
heaven, and the Downs were dewy. They had come at a good bat up
the slope and were a little out of breath; if they had anything
to say they did not say it, but marched in the early awkwardness
of unbreakfasted morning under the songs of the larks. The
stealing out had been fun, but with the freedom of the tops the
sense of conspiracy ceased, and gave place to dumbness.
“We've made one blooming error,” said Fleur, when they had gone
half a mile. “I'm hungry.”
Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their
tongues were loosened. They discussed the nature of their homes
and previous existences, which had a kind of fascinating
unreality up on that lonely height. There remained but one thing
solid in Jon's past—his mother; but one thing solid in