The Forsyte saga - Complete
“I dare say,” said Jolyon, “I dare say.”
And that was all she got from him; but the matter rankled in her
brain. She could not bear sleeping dogs. And there stirred in her
a tortuous impulse to push the matter toward decision. Jon ought
to be told, so that either his feeling might be nipped in the
bud, or, flowering in spite of the past, come to fruition. And
she determined to see Fleur, and judge for herself. When June
determined on anything, delicacy became a somewhat minor
consideration. After all, she was Soames' cousin, and they were
both interested in pictures. She would go and tell him that he
ought to buy a Paul Post, or perhaps a piece of sculpture by
Boris Strumolowski, and of course she would say nothing to her
father. She went on the following Sunday, looking so determined
that she had some difficulty in getting a cab at Reading station.
The river country was lovely in those days of her own month, and
June ached at its loveliness. She who had passed through this
life without knowing what union was had a love of natural beauty
which was almost madness. And when she came to that choice spot
where Soames had pitched his tent, she dismissed her cab,
because, business over, she wanted to revel in the bright water
and the woods. She appeared at his front door, therefore, as a
mere pedestrian, and sent in her card. It was in June's character
to know that when her nerves were fluttering she was doing
something worth while. If one's nerves did not flutter, she was
taking the line of least resistance, and knew that nobleness was
not obliging her. She was conducted to a drawing-room, which,
though not in her style, showed every mark of fastidious
elegance. Thinking, 'Too much taste—too many knick-knacks,' she
saw in an old lacquer-framed mirror the figure of a girl coming
in from the verandah. Clothed in white, and holding some white
roses in her hand, she had, reflected in that silvery-grey pool
of glass, a vision-like appearance, as if a pretty ghost had come
out of the green garden.
“How do you do?” said June, turning round. “I'm a cousin of your
father's.”
“Oh, yes; I saw you in that confectioner's.”
“With my young stepbrother. Is your father in?”
“He will be directly. He's only gone for a little walk.”
June slightly narrowed her blue eyes, and lifted her decided
chin.
“Your name's Fleur, isn't it? I've heard of you from Holly. What
do you think of Jon?”
The girl lifted the roses in her hand, looked at them, and
answered calmly:
“He's quite a nice boy.”
“Not a bit like Holly or me, is he?”
“Not a bit.”
'She's cool,' thought June.
And suddenly the girl said: “I wish you'd tell me why our
families don't get on?”
Confronted with the question she had advised her father to
answer, June was silent; whether because this girl was trying to
get something out of her, or simply because what one would do
theoretically is not always what one will do when it comes to the
point.
“You know,” said the girl, “the surest way to make people find
out the worst is to keep them ignorant. My father's told me it
was a quarrel about property. But I don't believe it; we've both
got heaps. They wouldn't have been so bourgeois as all that.”
June flushed. The word applied to her grandfather and father
offended her.
“My grandfather,” she said, “was very generous, and my father is,
too; neither of them was in the least bourgeois.”
“Well, what was it then?” repeated the girl: Conscious that this
young Forsyte meant having what she wanted, June at once
determined to prevent her, and to get something for herself
instead.
“Why do you want to know?”
The girl smelled at her roses. “I only want to know because they
won't tell me.”
“Well, it was about property, but there's more than one kind.”
“That makes it worse. Now I really must know.”
June's small and resolute face quivered. She was wearing a round
cap, and her hair had fluffed out under it. She looked quite
young at that moment, rejuvenated by encounter.
“You know,” she said, “I saw you drop your handkerchief. Is there
anything between you and Jon? Because, if so, you'd better drop
that too.”
The girl grew paler, but she smiled.
“If there were, that isn't the way to make me.”
At the gallantry of that reply, June held out her hand.
“I like you; but I don't like your father; I never have. We may
as well be frank.”
“Did you come down to tell him that?”
June laughed. “No; I came down to see you.”
“How delightful of you.”
This girl could fence.
“I'm two and a half times your age,” said June, “but I quite
sympathize. It's horrid not to have one's own way.”
The girl smiled again. “I really think you might tell me.”
How the child stuck to her point
“It's not my secret. But I'll see what I can do, because I think
both you and Jon ought to be told. And now I'll say good-bye.”
“Won't you wait and see Father?”
June shook her head. “How can I get over to the other side?”
“I'll row you across.”
“Look!” said June impulsively, “next time you're in London, come
and see me. This is where I live. I generally have young people
in the evening. But I shouldn't tell your father that you're
coming.”
The girl nodded.
Watching her scull the skiff across, June thought: 'She's awfully
pretty and well made. I never thought Soames would have a
daughter as pretty as this. She and Jon would make a lovely
couple.
The instinct to couple, starved within herself, was always at
work in June. She stood watching Fleur row back; the girl took
her hand off a scull to wave farewell, and June walked languidly
on between the meadows and the river, with an ache in her heart.
Youth to youth, like the dragon-flies chasing each other, and
love like the sun warming them through and through. Her youth! So
long ago—when Phil and she—And since? Nothing—no one had been
quite what she had wanted. And so she had missed it all. But what
a coil was round those two young things, if they really were in
love, as Holly would have it—as her father, and Irene, and Soames
himself seemed to dread. What a coil, and what a barrier! And the
itch for the future, the contempt, as it were, for what was
overpast, which forms the active principle, moved in the heart of
one who ever believed that what one wanted was more important
than what other people did not want. From the bank, awhile, in
the warm summer stillness, she watched the water-lily plants and
willow leaves, the fishes rising; sniffed the scent of grass and
meadow-sweet, wondering how she could force everybody to be
happy. Jon and Fleur! Two little lame ducks—charming callow
yellow little ducks! A great pity! Surely something could be
done! One must not take such situations lying down. She walked
on, and reached a station, hot and cross.
That evening, faithful to the impulse toward direct action, which
made many people avoid her, she said to her father:
“Dad, I've been down to see young Fleur. I think she's very
attractive. It's no good hiding our heads under our wings, is
it?”
The startled Jolyon set down his barley-water, and began
crumbling his bread.
“It's what you appear to be doing,” he said. “Do you realise
whose daughter she is?”
“Can't the dead past bury its dead?”
Jolyon rose.
“Certain things can never be buried.”
“I disagree,” said June. “It's that which stands in the way of
all happiness and progress. You don't understand the Age, Dad.
It's got no use for outgrown things. Why do you think it matters
so terribly that Jon should know about his mother? Who pays any
attention to that sort of thing now? The marriage laws are just
as they were when Soames and Irene couldn't get a divorce, and
you had to come in. We've moved, and they haven't. So nobody
cares. Marriage without a decent chance of relief is only a sort
of slave-owning; people oughtn't to own each other. Everybody
sees that now. If Irene broke such laws, what does it matter?”
“It's not for me to disagree there,” said Jolyon; “but that's all
quite beside the mark. This is a matter of human feeling.”
“Of course it is,” cried June, “the human feeling of those two
young things.”
“My dear,” said Jolyon with gentle exasperation; “you're talking
nonsense.”
“I'm not. If they prove to be really fond of each other, why
should they be made unhappy because of the past?”
“You haven't lived that past. I have—through the feelings of my
wife; through my own nerves and my imagination, as only one who
is devoted can.”
June, too, rose, and began to wander restlessly.
“If,” she said suddenly, “she were the daughter of Philip
Bosinney, I could understand you better. Irene loved him, she
never loved Soames.”
Jolyon uttered a deep sound-the sort of noise an Italian peasant
woman utters to her mule. His heart had begun beating furiously,
but he paid no attention to it, quite carried away by his
feelings.
“That shows how little you understand. Neither I nor Jon, if I
know him, would mind a love-past. It's the brutality of a union
without love. This girl is the daughter of the man who once owned
Jon's mother as a negro-slave was owned. You can't lay that
ghost; don't try to, June! It's asking us to see Jon joined to
the flesh and blood of the man who possessed Jon's mother against
her will. It's no good mincing words; I want it clear once for
all. And now I mustn't talk any more, or I shall have to sit up
with this all night.” And, putting his hand over his heart,
Jolyon turned his back on his daughter and stood looking at the
river Thames.
June, who by nature never saw a hornet's nest until she had put
her head into it, was seriously alarmed. She came and slipped her
arm through his. Not convinced that he was right, and she herself
wrong, because that was not natural to her, she was yet
profoundly impressed by the obvious fact that the subject was
very bad for him. She rubbed her cheek against his shoulder, and
said nothing.
After taking her elderly cousin across, Fleur did not land at
once, but pulled in among the reeds, into the sunshine. The
peaceful beauty of the afternoon seduced for a little one not
much given to the vague and poetic. In the field beyond the bank
where her skiff lay up, a machine drawn by a grey horse was
turning an early field of hay. She watched the grass cascading
over and behind the light wheels with fascination—it looked so
cool and fresh. The click and swish blended with the rustle of
the willows and the poplars, and the cooing of a wood-pigeon, in
a true river song. Alongside, in the deep green water, weeds,
like yellow snakes, were writhing and nosing with the current;