The Forsyte saga - Complete
low growl. Old Jolyon stirred him with his foot, but the dog
remained motionless, just where there was no room to pass, and
the hair rose slowly along the centre of his woolly back. Whether
from the growl and the look of the dog’s stivered hair, or from
the sensation which a man feels in a wood, old Jolyon also felt
something move along his spine. And then the path turned, and
there was an old mossy log, and on it a woman sitting. Her face
was turned away, and he had just time to think: “She’s
trespassing—I must have a board put up!” before she turned.
Powers above! The face he had seen at the opera—the very woman he
had just been thinking of! In that confused moment he saw things
blurred, as if a spirit—queer effect—the slant of sunlight
perhaps on her violet-grey frock! And then she rose and stood
smiling, her head a little to one side. Old Jolyon thought: “How
pretty she is!” She did not speak, neither did he; and he
realized why with a certain admiration. She was here no doubt
because of some memory, and did not mean to try and get out of it
by vulgar explanation.
“Don’t let that dog touch your frock,” he said; “he’s got wet
feet. Come here, you!”
But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor, who put her
hand down and stroked his head. Old Jolyon said quickly:
“I saw you at the opera the other night; you didn’t notice me.”
“Oh, yes! I did.”
He felt a subtle flattery in that, as though she had added: “Do
you think one could miss seeing you?”
“They’re all in Spain,” he remarked abruptly. “I’m alone; I drove
up for the opera. The Ravogli’s good. Have you seen the
cow-houses?”
In a situation so charged with mystery and something very like
emotion he moved instinctively towards that bit of property, and
she moved beside him. Her figure swayed faintly, like the best
kind of French figures; her dress, too, was a sort of French
grey. He noticed two or three silver threads in her
amber-coloured hair, strange hair with those dark eyes of hers,
and that creamy-pale face. A sudden sidelong look from the
velvety brown eyes disturbed him. It seemed to come from deep and
far, from another world almost, or at all events from some one
not living very much in this. And he said mechanically:
“Where are you living now?”
“I have a little flat in Chelsea.”
He did not want to hear what she was doing, did not want to hear
anything; but the perverse word came out:
“Alone?”
She nodded. It was a relief to know that. And it came into his
mind that, but for a twist of fate, she would have been mistress
of this coppice, showing these cow-houses to him, a visitor.
“All Alderneys,” he muttered; “they give the best milk. This
one’s a pretty creature. Woa, Myrtle!”
The fawn-coloured cow, with eyes as soft and brown as Irene’s
own, was standing absolutely still, not having long been milked.
She looked round at them out of the corner of those lustrous,
mild, cynical eyes, and from her grey lips a little dribble of
saliva threaded its way towards the straw. The scent of hay and
vanilla and ammonia rose in the dim light of the cool cow-house;
and old Jolyon said:
“You must come up and have some dinner with me. I’ll send you
home in the carriage.”
He perceived a struggle going on within her; natural, no doubt,
with her memories. But he wanted her company; a pretty face, a
charming figure, beauty! He had been alone all the afternoon.
Perhaps his eyes were wistful, for she answered: “Thank you,
Uncle Jolyon. I should like to.”
He rubbed his hands, and said:
“Capital! Let’s go up, then!” And, preceded by the dog Balthasar,
they ascended through the field. The sun was almost level in
their faces now, and he could see, not only those silver threads,
but little lines, just deep enough to stamp her beauty with a
coin-like fineness—the special look of life unshared with others.
“I’ll take her in by the terrace,” he thought: “I won’t make a
common visitor of her.”
“What do you do all day?” he said.
“Teach music; I have another interest, too.”
“Work!” said old Jolyon, picking up the doll from off the swing,
and smoothing its black petticoat. “Nothing like it, is there? I
don’t do any now. I’m getting on. What interest is that?”
“Trying to help women who’ve come to grief.” Old Jolyon did not
quite understand. “To grief?” he repeated; then realised with a
shock that she meant exactly what he would have meant himself if
he had used that expression. Assisting the Magdalenes of London!
What a weird and terrifying interest! And, curiosity overcoming
his natural shrinking, he asked:
“Why? What do you do for them?”
“Not much. I’ve no money to spare. I can only give sympathy and
food sometimes.”
Involuntarily old Jolyon’s hand sought his purse. He said
hastily: “How d’you get hold of them?”
“I go to a hospital.”
“A hospital! Phew!”
“What hurts me most is that once they nearly all had some sort of
beauty.”
Old Jolyon straightened the doll. “Beauty!” he ejaculated: “Ha!
Yes! A sad business!” and he moved towards the house. Through a
French window, under sun-blinds not yet drawn up, he preceded her
into the room where he was wont to study _The Times_ and the
sheets of an agricultural magazine, with huge illustrations of
mangold wurzels, and the like, which provided Holly with material
for her paint brush.
“Dinner’s in half an hour. You’d like to wash your hands! I’ll
take you to June’s room.”
He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since she had last
visited this house with her husband, or her lover, or both
perhaps—he did not know, could not say! All that was dark, and he
wished to leave it so. But what changes! And in the hall he said:
“My boy Jo’s a painter, you know. He’s got a lot of taste. It
isn’t mine, of course, but I’ve let him have his way.”
She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through the hall
and music room, as it now was—all thrown into one, under the
great skylight. Old Jolyon had an odd impression of her. Was she
trying to conjure somebody from the shades of that space where
the colouring was all pearl-grey and silver? He would have had
gold himself; more lively and solid. But Jo had French tastes,
and it had come out shadowy like that, with an effect as of the
fume of cigarettes the chap was always smoking, broken here and
there by a little blaze of blue or crimson colour. It was not
_his_ dream! Mentally he had hung this space with those
gold-framed masterpieces of still and stiller life which he had
bought in days when quantity was precious. And now where were
they? Sold for a song! That something which made him, alone among
Forsytes, move with the times had warned him against the struggle
to retain them. But in his study he still had “Dutch Fishing
Boats at Sunset.”
He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for he felt his
side.
“These are the bathrooms,” he said, “and other arrangements. I’ve
had them tiled. The nurseries are along there. And this is Jo’s
and his wife’s. They all communicate. But you remember, I
expect.”
Irene nodded. They passed on, up the gallery and entered a large
room with a small bed, and several windows.
“This is mine,” he said. The walls were covered with the
photographs of children and watercolour sketches, and he added
doubtfully:
“These are Jo’s. The view’s first-rate. You can see the Grand
Stand at Epsom in clear weather.”
The sun was down now, behind the house, and over the “prospect” a
luminous haze had settled, emanation of the long and prosperous
day. Few houses showed, but fields and trees faintly glistened,
away to a loom of downs.
“The country’s changing,” he said abruptly, “but there it’ll be
when we’re all gone. Look at those thrushes—the birds are sweet
here in the mornings. I’m glad to have washed my hands of
London.”
Her face was close to the window pane, and he was struck by its
mournful look. “Wish I could make her look happy!” he thought. “A
pretty face, but sad!” And taking up his can of hot water he went
out into the gallery.
“This is June’s room,” he said, opening the next door and putting
the can down; “I think you’ll find everything.” And closing the
door behind her he went back to his own room. Brushing his hair
with his great ebony brushes, and dabbing his forehead with eau
de Cologne, he mused. She had come so strangely—a sort of
visitation; mysterious, even romantic, as if his desire for
company, for beauty, had been fulfilled by whatever it was which
fulfilled that sort of thing. And before the mirror he
straightened his still upright figure, passed the brushes over
his great white moustache, touched up his eyebrows with eau de
Cologne, and rang the bell.
“I forgot to let them know that I have a lady to dinner with me.
Let cook do something extra, and tell Beacon to have the landau
and pair at half-past ten to drive her back to Town to-night. Is
Miss Holly asleep?”
The maid thought not. And old Jolyon, passing down the gallery,
stole on tiptoe towards the nursery, and opened the door whose
hinges he kept specially oiled that he might slip in and out in
the evenings without being heard.
But Holly _was_ asleep, and lay like a miniature Madonna, of that
type which the old painters could not tell from Venus, when they
had completed her. Her long dark lashes clung to her cheeks; on
her face was perfect peace—her little arrangements were evidently
all right again. And old Jolyon, in the twilight of the room,
stood adoring her! It was so charming, solemn, and loving—that
little face. He had more than his share of the blessed capacity
of living again in the young. They were to him his future
life—all of a future life that his fundamental pagan sanity
perhaps admitted. There she was with everything before her, and
his blood—some of it—in her tiny veins. There she was, his little
companion, to be made as happy as ever he could make her, so that
she knew nothing but love. His heart swelled, and he went out,
stilling the sound of his patent-leather boots. In the corridor
an eccentric notion attacked him: To think that children should
come to that which Irene had told him she was helping! Women who
were all, once, little things like this one sleeping there! “I
must give her a cheque!” he mused; “Can’t bear to think of them!”
They had never borne reflecting on, those poor outcasts; wounding
too deeply the core of true refinement hidden under layers of
conformity to the sense of property—wounding too grievously the
deepest thing in him—a love of beauty which could give him, even
now, a flutter of the heart, thinking of his evening in the
society of a pretty woman. And he went downstairs, through the