The Forsyte saga - Complete
“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