The Forsyte saga - Complete
swinging doors, to the back regions. There, in the wine-cellar,
was a hock worth at least two pounds a bottle, a Steinberg
Cabinet, better than any Johannisberg that ever went down throat;
a wine of perfect bouquet, sweet as a nectarine—nectar indeed! He
got a bottle out, handling it like a baby, and holding it level
to the light, to look. Enshrined in its coat of dust, that mellow
coloured, slender-necked bottle gave him deep pleasure. Three
years to settle down again since the move from Town—ought to be
in prime condition! Thirty-five years ago he had bought it—thank
God he had kept his palate, and earned the right to drink it. She
would appreciate this; not a spice of acidity in a dozen. He
wiped the bottle, drew the cork with his own hands, put his nose
down, inhaled its perfume, and went back to the music room.
Irene was standing by the piano; she had taken off her hat and a
lace scarf she had been wearing, so that her gold-coloured hair
was visible, and the pallor of her neck. In her grey frock she
made a pretty picture for old Jolyon, against the rosewood of the
piano.
He gave her his arm, and solemnly they went. The room, which had
been designed to enable twenty-four people to dine in comfort,
held now but a little round table. In his present solitude the
big dining-table oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be
removed till his son came back. Here in the company of two really
good copies of Raphael Madonnas he was wont to dine alone. It was
the only disconsolate hour of his day, this summer weather. He
had never been a large eater, like that great chap Swithin, or
Sylvanus Heythorp, or Anthony Thornworthy, those cronies of past
times; and to dine alone, overlooked by the Madonnas, was to him
but a sorrowful occupation, which he got through quickly, that he
might come to the more spiritual enjoyment of his coffee and
cigar. But this evening was a different matter! His eyes twinkled
at her across the little table and he spoke of Italy and
Switzerland, telling her stories of his travels there, and other
experiences which he could no longer recount to his son and
grand-daughter because they knew them. This fresh audience was
precious to him; he had never become one of those old men who
ramble round and round the fields of reminiscence. Himself
quickly fatigued by the insensitive, he instinctively avoided
fatiguing others, and his natural flirtatiousness towards beauty
guarded him specially in his relations with a woman. He would
have liked to draw her out, but though she murmured and smiled
and seemed to be enjoying what he told her, he remained conscious
of that mysterious remoteness which constituted half her
fascination. He could not bear women who threw their shoulders
and eyes at you, and chattered away; or hard-mouthed women who
laid down the law and knew more than you did. There was only one
quality in a woman that appealed to him—charm; and the quieter it
was, the more he liked it. And this one had charm, shadowy as
afternoon sunlight on those Italian hills and valleys he had
loved. The feeling, too, that she was, as it were, apart,
cloistered, made her seem nearer to himself, a strangely
desirable companion. When a man is very old and quite out of the
running, he loves to feel secure from the rivalries of youth, for
he would still be first in the heart of beauty. And he drank his
hock, and watched her lips, and felt nearly young. But the dog
Balthasar lay watching her lips too, and despising in his heart
the interruptions of their talk, and the tilting of those
greenish glasses full of a golden fluid which was distasteful to
him.
The light was just failing when they went back into the
music-room. And, cigar in mouth, old Jolyon said:
“Play me some Chopin.”
By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall
know the texture of men’s souls. Old Jolyon could not bear a
strong cigar or Wagner’s music. He loved Beethoven and Mozart,
Handel and Gluck, and Schumann, and, for some occult reason, the
operas of Meyerbeer; but of late years he had been seduced by
Chopin, just as in painting he had succumbed to Botticelli. In
yielding to these tastes he had been conscious of divergence from
the standard of the Golden Age. Their poetry was not that of
Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael and Titian; Mozart and
Beethoven. It was, as it were, behind a veil; their poetry hit no
one in the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs and
turned and twisted, and melted up the heart. And, never certain
that this was healthy, he did not care a rap so long as he could
see the pictures of the one or hear the music of the other.
Irene sat down at the piano under the electric lamp festooned
with pearl-grey, and old Jolyon, in an armchair, whence he could
see her, crossed his legs and drew slowly at his cigar. She sat a
few moments with her hands on the keys, evidently searching her
mind for what to give him. Then she began and within old Jolyon
there arose a sorrowful pleasure, not quite like anything else in
the world. He fell slowly into a trance, interrupted only by the
movements of taking the cigar out of his mouth at long intervals,
and replacing it. She was there, and the hock within him, and the
scent of tobacco; but there, too, was a world of sunshine
lingering into moonlight, and pools with storks upon them, and
bluish trees above, glowing with blurs of wine-red roses, and
fields of lavender where milk-white cows were grazing, and a
woman all shadowy, with dark eyes and a white neck, smiled,
holding out her arms; and through air which was like music a star
dropped and was caught on a cow’s horn. He opened his eyes.
Beautiful piece; she played well—the touch of an angel! And he
closed them again. He felt miraculously sad and happy, as one
does, standing under a lime-tree in full honey flower. Not live
one’s own life again, but just stand there and bask in the smile
of a woman’s eyes, and enjoy the bouquet! And he jerked his hand;
the dog Balthasar had reached up and licked it.
“Beautiful!” He said: “Go on—more Chopin!”
She began to play again. This time the resemblance between her
and “Chopin” struck him. The swaying he had noticed in her walk
was in her playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen and the
soft darkness of her eyes, the light on her hair, as of moonlight
from a golden moon. Seductive, yes; but nothing of Delilah in her
or in that music. A long blue spiral from his cigar ascended and
dispersed. “So we go out!” he thought. “No more beauty! Nothing?”
Again Irene stopped.
“Would you like some Gluck? He used to write his music in a
sunlit garden, with a bottle of Rhine wine beside him.”
“Ah! yes. Let’s have ‘Orfeo.’” Round about him now were fields of
gold and silver flowers, white forms swaying in the sunlight,
bright birds flying to and fro. All was summer. Lingering waves
of sweetness and regret flooded his soul. Some cigar ash dropped,
and taking out a silk handkerchief to brush it off, he inhaled a
mingled scent as of snuff and eau de Cologne. “Ah!” he thought,
“Indian summer—that’s all!” and he said: “You haven’t played me
‘Che faro.’”
She did not answer; did not move. He was conscious of
something—some strange upset. Suddenly he saw her rise and turn
away, and a pang of remorse shot through him. What a clumsy chap!
Like Orpheus, she of course—she too was looking for her lost one
in the hall of memory! And disturbed to the heart, he got up from
his chair. She had gone to the great window at the far end.
Gingerly he followed. Her hands were folded over her breast; he
could just see her cheek, very white. And, quite emotionalized,
he said:
“There, there, my love!” The words had escaped him mechanically,
for they were those he used to Holly when she had a pain, but
their effect was instantaneously distressing. She raised her
arms, covered her face with them, and wept.
Old Jolyon stood gazing at her with eyes very deep from age. The
passionate shame she seemed feeling at her abandonment, so unlike
the control and quietude of her whole presence was as if she had
never before broken down in the presence of another being.
“There, there—there, there!” he murmured, and putting his hand
out reverently, touched her. She turned, and leaned the arms
which covered her face against him. Old Jolyon stood very still,
keeping one thin hand on her shoulder. Let her cry her heart
out—it would do her good.
And the dog Balthasar, puzzled, sat down on his stern to examine
them.
The window was still open, the curtains had not been drawn, the
last of daylight from without mingled with faint intrusion from
the lamp within; there was a scent of new-mown grass. With the
wisdom of a long life old Jolyon did not speak. Even grief sobbed
itself out in time; only Time was good for sorrow—Time who saw
the passing of each mood, each emotion in turn; Time the
layer-to-rest. There came into his mind the words: “As panteth
the hart after cooling streams”—but they were of no use to him.
Then, conscious of a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her
eyes. He put his chin forward, pressed his moustache against her
forehead, and felt her shake with a quivering of her whole body,
as of a tree which shakes itself free of raindrops. She put his
hand to her lips, as if saying: “All over now! Forgive me!”
The kiss filled him with a strange comfort; he led her back to
where she had been so upset. And the dog Balthasar, following,
laid the bone of one of the cutlets they had eaten at their feet.
Anxious to obliterate the memory of that emotion, he could think
of nothing better than china; and moving with her slowly from
cabinet to cabinet, he kept taking up bits of Dresden and
Lowestoft and Chelsea, turning them round and round with his
thin, veined hands, whose skin, faintly freckled, had such an
aged look.
“I bought this at Jobson’s,” he would say; “cost me thirty
pounds. It’s very old. That dog leaves his bones all over the
place. This old ‘ship-bowl’ I picked up at the sale when that
precious rip, the Marquis, came to grief. But you don’t remember.
Here’s a nice piece of Chelsea. Now, what would you say _this_
was?” And he was comforted, feeling that, with her taste, she was
taking a real interest in these things; for, after all, nothing
better composes the nerves than a doubtful piece of china.
When the crunch of the carriage wheels was heard at last, he
said:
“You must come again; you must come to lunch, then I can show you
these by daylight, and my little sweet—she’s a dear little thing.
This dog seems to have taken a fancy to you.”
For Balthasar, feeling that she was about to leave, was rubbing
his side against her leg. Going out under the porch with her, he
said: