The Forsyte saga - Complete
immobility. But she looked desolate! Fleur went upstairs. At the
door of her room she paused. She could hear her father walking up
and down, up and down the picture-gallery.
'Yes,' she thought, jolly! Oh, Jon!'
X.—DECISION
When Fleur left him Jon stared at the Austrian. She was a thin
woman with a dark face and the concerned expression of one who
has watched every little good that life once had slip from her,
one by one. “No tea?” she said.
Susceptible to the disappointment in her voice, Jon murmured:
“No, really; thanks.”
“A lil cup—it ready. A lil cup and cigarette.”
Fleur was gone! Hours of remorse and indecision lay before him!
And with a heavy sense of disproportion he smiled, and said:
“Well—thank you!”
She brought in a little pot of tea with two little cups, and a
silver box of cigarettes on a little tray.
“Sugar? Miss Forsyte has much sugar—she buy my sugar, my friend's
sugar also. Miss Forsyte is a veree kind lady. I am happy to
serve her. You her brother?”
“Yes,” said Jon, beginning to puff the second cigarette of his
life.
“Very young brother,” said the Austrian, with a little anxious
smile, which reminded him of the wag of a dog's tail.
“May I give you some?” he said. “And won't you sit down, please?”
The Austrian shook her head.
“Your father a very nice old man—the most nice old man I ever
see. Miss Forsyte tell me all about him. Is he better?”
Her words fell on Jon like a reproach. “Oh Yes, I think he's all
right.”
“I like to see him again,” said the Austrian, putting a hand on
her heart; “he have veree kind heart.”
“Yes,” said Jon. And again her words seemed to him a reproach.
“He never give no trouble to no one, and smile so gentle.”
“Yes, doesn't he?”
“He look at Miss Forsyte so funny sometimes. I tell him all my
story; he so sympatisch. Your mother—she nice and well?”
“Yes, very.”
“He have her photograph on his dressing-table. Veree beautiful”
Jon gulped down his tea. This woman, with her concerned face and
her reminding words, was like the first and second murderers.
“Thank you,” he said; “I must go now. May—may I leave this with
you?”
He put a ten-shilling note on the tray with a doubting hand and
gained the door. He heard the Austrian gasp, and hurried out. He
had just time to catch his train, and all the way to Victoria
looked at every face that passed, as lovers will, hoping against
hope. On reaching Worthing he put his luggage into the local
train, and set out across the Downs for Wansdon, trying to walk
off his aching irresolution. So long as he went full bat, he
could enjoy the beauty of those green slopes, stopping now and
again to sprawl on the grass, admire the perfection of a wild
rose or listen to a lark's song. But the war of motives within
him was but postponed—the longing for Fleur, and the hatred of
deception. He came to the old chalk-pit above Wansdon with his
mind no more made up than when he started. To see both sides of a
question vigorously was at once Jon's strength and weakness. He
tramped in, just as the first dinner-bell rang. His things had
already been brought up. He had a hurried bath and came down to
find Holly alone—Val had gone to Town and would not be back till
the last train.
Since Val's advice to him to ask his sister what was the matter
between the two families, so much had happened—Fleur's disclosure
in the Green Park, her visit to Robin Hill, to-day's meeting—that
there seemed nothing to ask. He talked of Spain, his sunstroke,
Val's horses, their father's health. Holly startled him by saying
that she thought their father not at all well. She had been twice
to Robin Hill for the week-end. He had seemed fearfully languid,
sometimes even in pain, but had always refused to talk about
himself.
“He's awfully dear and unselfish—don't you think, Jon?”
Feeling far from dear and unselfish himself, Jon answered:
“Rather!”
“I think, he's been a simply perfect father, so long as I can
remember.”
“Yes,” answered Jon, very subdued.
“He's never interfered, and he's always seemed to understand. I
shall never forget his letting me go to South Africa in the Boer
War when I was in love with Val.”
“That was before he married Mother, wasn't it?” said Jon
suddenly.
“Yes. Why?”
“Oh! nothing. Only, wasn't she engaged to Fleur's father first?”
Holly put down the spoon she was using, and raised her eyes. Her
stare was circumspect. What did the boy know? Enough to make it
better to tell him? She could not decide. He looked strained and
worried, altogether older, but that might be the sunstroke.
“There was something,” she said. “Of course we were out there,
and got no news of anything.” She could not take the risk.
It was not her secret. Besides, she was in the dark about his
feelings now. Before Spain she had made sure he was in love; but
boys were boys; that was seven weeks ago, and all Spain between.
She saw that he knew she was putting him off, and added:
“Have you heard anything of Fleur?”
“Yes.”
His face told her, then, more than the most elaborate
explanations. So he had not forgotten!
She said very quietly: “Fleur is awfully attractive, Jon, but you
know—Val and I don't really like her very much.”
“Why?”
“We think she's got rather a 'having' nature.”
“'Having'. I don't know what you mean. She—she—” he pushed his
dessert plate away, got up, and went to the window.
Holly, too, got up, and put her arm round his waist.
“Don't be angry, Jon dear. We can't all see people in the same
light, can we? You know, I believe each of us only has about one
or two people who can see the best that's in us, and bring it
out. For you I think it's your mother. I once saw her looking at
a letter of yours; it was wonderful to see her face. I think
she's the most beautiful woman I ever saw—Age doesn't seem to
touch her.”
Jon's face softened; then again became tense. Everybody—everybody
was against him and Fleur! It all strengthened the appeal of her
words: “Make sure of me—marry me, Jon!”
Here, where he had passed that wonderful week with her—the tug of
her enchantment, the ache in his heart increased with every
minute that she was not there to make the room, the garden, the
very air magical. Would he ever be able to live down here, not
seeing her? And he closed up utterly, going early to bed. It
would not make him healthy, wealthy, and wise, but it closeted
him with memory of Fleur in her fancy frock. He heard Val's
arrival—the Ford discharging cargo, then the stillness of the
summer night stole back—with only the bleating of very distant
sheep, and a night-Jar's harsh purring. He leaned far out. Cold
moon—warm air—the Downs like silver! Small wings, a stream
bubbling, the rambler roses! God—how empty all of it without her!
In the Bible it was written: Thou shalt leave father and mother
and cleave to—Fleur!
Let him have pluck, and go and tell them! They couldn't stop him
marrying her—they wouldn't want to stop him when they knew how he
felt. Yes! He would go! Bold and open—Fleur was wrong!
The night-jar ceased, the sheep were silent; the only sound in
the darkness was the bubbling of the stream. And Jon in his bed
slept, freed from the worst of life's evils—indecision.
XI.—TIMOTHY PROPHESIES
On the day of the cancelled meeting at the National Gallery began
the second anniversary of the resurrection of England's pride and
glory—or, more shortly, the top hat. “Lord's”—that festival which
the War had driven from the field—raised its light and dark blue
flags for the second time, displaying almost every feature of a
glorious past. Here, in the luncheon interval, were all species
of female and one species of male hat, protecting the multiple
types of face associated with “the classes.” The observing
Forsyte might discern in the free or unconsidered seats a certain
number of the squash-hatted, but they hardly ventured on the
grass; the old school—or schools—could still rejoice that the
proletariat was not yet paying the necessary half-crown. Here was
still a close borough, the only one left on a large scale—for the
papers were about to estimate the attendance at ten thousand. And
the ten thousand, all animated by one hope, were asking each
other one question: “Where are you lunching?” Something
wonderfully uplifting and reassuring in that query and the sight
of so many people like themselves voicing it! What reserve power
in the British realm—enough pigeons, lobsters, lamb, salmon
mayonnaise, strawberries, and bottles of champagne to feed the
lot! No miracle in prospect—no case of seven loaves and a few
fishes—faith rested on surer foundations. Six thousand top hats,
four thousand parasols would be doffed and furled, ten thousand
mouths all speaking the same English would be filled. There was
life in the old dog yet! Tradition! And again Tradition! How
strong and how elastic! Wars might rage, taxation prey, Trades
Unions take toll, and Europe perish of starvation; but the ten
thousand would be fed; and, within their ring fence, stroll upon
green turf, wear their top hats, and meet—themselves. The heart
was sound, the pulse still regular. E-ton! E-ton! Har-r-o-o-o-w!
Among the many Forsytes, present on a hunting-ground theirs, by
personal prescriptive right, or proxy, was Soames with his wife
and daughter. He had not been at either school, he took no
interest in cricket, but he wanted Fleur to show her frock, and
he wanted to wear his top hat parade it again in peace and plenty
among his peers. He walked sedately with Fleur between him and
Annette. No women equalled them, so far as he could see. They
could walk, and hold themselves up; there was substance in their
good looks; the modern woman had no build, no chest, no anything!
He remembered suddenly with what intoxication of pride he had
walked round with Irene in the first years of his first marriage.
And how they used to lunch on the drag which his mother would
make his father have, because it was so “chic”—all drags and
carriages in those days, not these lumbering great Stands! And
how consistently Montague Dartie had drunk too much. He supposed
that people drank too much still, but there was not the scope for
it there used to be. He remembered George Forsyte—whose brothers
Roger and Eustace had been at Harrow and Eton—towering up on the
top of the drag waving a light-blue flag with one hand and a
dark-blue flag with the other, and shouting “Etroow-Harrton!”
Just when everybody was silent, like the buffoon he had always
been; and Eustace got up to the nines below, too dandified to
wear any colour or take any notice. H'm! Old days, and Irene in