Oh! dear!
Chapter X.
AFTER LUNCH
That the most pregnant function of human life is the meal, will be admitted by all who take part in these recurrent crises. The impossibility of getting down from table renders it the most formidable of human activities among people civilised to the point of swallowing not only their food but their feelings.
Such a conclusion at least was present to Fleur during that lunch. That her room was Spanish, reminded her that it was not with Jon she had spent her honeymoon in Spain. There had been a curious moment, too, before lunch; for, the first words Jon had spoken on seeing Michael, had been:
“Hallo! This is queer! Was Fleur with you that day at Mount Vernon?”
What was this? Had she been kept in the dark?
Then Michael had said:
“You remember, Fleur? The young Englishman I met at Mount Vernon.”
“‘Ships that pass in the night!’” said Fleur.
Mount Vernon! So THEY had met there! And she had not!
“Mount Vernon is lovely. But you ought to see Richmond, Anne. We could go after lunch. You haven’t been to Richmond for ages, I expect, Aunt Winifred. We could take Robin Hill on the way home, Jon.”
“Your old home, Jon? Oh! Do let’s!”
At that moment she hated the girl’s eager face at which Jon was looking.
“There’s the potentate,” he said.
“Oh!” said Fleur, quickly, “He’s at Monte Carlo. I read it yesterday. Could you come, Michael?”
“Afraid I’ve got a Committee. And the car can only manage five.”
“It would be just too lovely!”
Oh! that American enthusiasm! It was comforting to hear her Aunt’s flat voice opining that it would be a nice little run–the chestnuts would be out in the Park.
Had Michael really a Committee? She often knew what Michael really had, she generally knew more or less what he was thinking, but now she did not seem to know. In telling him last night of this invitation to lunch, she had carefully obliterated the impression by an embrace warmer than usual–he must not get any nonsense into his head about Jon! When, too, to her father she had said:
“Couldn’t Kit and I come down to you the day after tomorrow; but you’ll want a day there first, I’m afraid, if Mother’s not there,” how carefully she had listened to the tone of his reply:
“H’m! Ye–es! I’ll go down tomorrow morning.”
Had he scented anything; had Michael scented anything? She turned to Jon.
“Well, Jon, what d’you think of my house?”
“It’s very like you.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“To the house? Of course.”
“Francis didn’t exaggerate then?”
“Not a bit.”
“You haven’t seen Kit yet. We’ll have him down. Coaker, please ask Nurse to bring Kit down, unless he’s asleep… He’ll be three in July; quite a good walker already. It makes one frightfully old!”
The entrance of Kit and his silver dog caused a sort of cooing sound, speedily checked, for three of the women were of Forsyte stock, and the Forsytes did not coo. He stood there, blue and rather Dutch, with a slight frown and his hair bright, staring at the company.
“Come here, my son. This is Jon–your second cousin once removed.”
Kit advanced.
“S’all I bwing my ‘orse in?”
“Horse, Kit. No; shake hands.”
The small hand went up; Jon’s hand came down.
“You got dirty nails.”
She saw Jon flush, heard Anne’s: “Isn’t he just too cunning?” and said:
“Kit, you’re very rude. So would you have, if you’d been stoking an engine.”
“Yes, old man, I’ve been washing them ever since, but I can’t get them clean.”
“Why?”
“It’s got into the skin.”
“Le’ me see.”
“Go and shake hands with your great-aunt, Kit.”
“No.”
“Dear little chap,” said Winifred. “Such a bore, isn’t it, Kit?”
“Very well, then, go out again, and get your manners, and bring them in.”
“All wight.”
His exit, closed in by the silver dog, was followed by a general laugh; Fleur said, softly:
“Little wretch–poor Jon!” And through her lashes she saw Jon give her a grateful look…
In this mid-May fine weather the view from Richmond Hill had all the width and leafy charm which had drawn so many Forsytes in phaetons and barouches, in hansom cabs and motor cars from immemorial time, or at least from the days of George the Fourth. The winding river shone discreetly, far down there; and the trees of the encompassing landscape, though the oaks were still goldened, had just begun to have a brooding look; in July they would be heavy and blueish. Curiously, few houses showed among the trees and fields; very scanty evidence of man, within twelve miles of London! The spirit of an older England seemed to have fended jerry-builders from a prospect sacred to the ejaculations of four generations.
Of those five on the terrace Winifred best expressed that guarding spirit, with her:
“Really, it’s a very pretty view!”
A view–a view! And yet a view was not what it had been when old Jolyon travelled the Alps with that knapsack of brown leather and square shape, still in his grandson Jon’s possession; or Swithin above his greys, rolling his neck with consequence toward the lady by his side, had pointed with his whip down at the river and pouted: “A pooty little view!” Or James, crouched over his long knees in some gondola, had examined the Grand Canal at Venice with doubting eyes, and muttered: “They never told me the water was this colour!” Or Nicholas, taking his constitutional at Matlock, had opined that the gorge was the finest in England. No, a view was not what it had been! George Forsyte and Montague Dartie, with their backs to it, quizzically contemplating the Liberty ladies brought down to be fed, had started that rot; and now the young folk didn’t use the expression, but just ejaculated: “Christ!” or words to that effect.
But there was Anne, of course, like an American, with clasped hands, and:
“Isn’t it too lovely, Jon? It’s sort of romantic!”
And so to the Park, where Winifred chanted automatically at sight of the chestnuts, and every path and patch of fern and fallen tree drew from Holly or Jon some riding recollection.
“Look, Anne, that’s where I threw myself off my pony as a kid when I lost my stirrup and got so bored with being bumped.”
Or: “Look, Jon! Val and I had a race down that avenue. Oh! and there’s the log we used to jump. Still there!”
And Anne was in ecstasies over the deer and the grass, so different from the American varieties.
To Fleur the Park meant nothing.
“Jon,” she said, suddenly, “what are you going to do to get in at Robin Hill?”
“Tell the lodge-keeper that I want to show my wife where I lived as a boy; and give him a couple of good reasons. I don’t want to see the house, all new furniture and that.”
“Couldn’t we go in at the bottom, through the coppice?” and her eyes added: “As we did that day.”
“We might come on someone, and get turned back.”
The couple of good reasons secured their top entrance to the grounds; the ‘family’ was not ‘in residence.’
Bosinney’s masterpiece wore its mellowest aspect. The sun-blinds were down, for the sun was streaming on its front, past the old oak tree, where was now no swing. In Irene’s rose-garden, which had replaced old Jolyon’s fernery, buds were forming, but only one rose was out.
“‘Rose, you Spaniard!’” Something clutched Fleur’s heart. What was Jon thinking–what remembering, with those words and that frown? Just here she had sat between his father and his mother, believing that she and Jon would live here some day; together watch the roses bloom, the old oak drop its leaves; together say to their guests: “Look! There’s the Grand Stand at Epsom–see? Just above those poplars!”
And now she could not even walk beside him, who was playing guide to that girl, his wife! Beside her aunt she walked instead. Winifred was extremely intrigued. She had never yet seen this house, which Soames had built with the brains of young Bosinney; which Irene, with ‘that unfortunate little affair of hers’ had wrecked; this house where Old Uncle Jolyon, and Cousin Jolyon had died; and Irene, so ironically, had lived and had this boy Jon–a nice boy, too; this house of Forsyte song and story. It was very distinguished and belonged to a peer now, which, since it had gone out of the family, seemed suitable. In the walled fruit-garden, she said to Fleur:
“Your grandfather came down here once, to see how it was getting on. I remember his saying: ‘It’ll cost a pretty penny to keep up.’ And I should think it does. But it was a pity to sell it. Irene’s doing, of course! She never cared for the family. Now, if only–” But she stopped short of the words: “you and Jon had made a match of it.”
“What on earth would Jon have done, Auntie, with a great place like this so near London? He’s a poet.”
“Yes,” murmured Winifred–not very quick, because in her youth quickness had not been fashionable. “There’s too much glass, perhaps.” And they went down through the meadow.
The coppice! Still there at the bottom of the field. But Fleur lingered now, stood by the fallen log, waited till she could say:
“Listen! The cuckoo, Jon!”
The cuckoo’s song, and the sight of bluebells under the larch trees! Beside her Jon stood still! Yes, and the Spring stood still. There went the song–over and over!
“It was HERE we came on your mother, Jon, and our stars were crossed. Oh, Jon!”
Could so short a sound mean so much, say so much, be so startling? His face! She jumped on to the log at once.
“No ghosts, my dear!”
And, with a start, Jon looked up at her.
She put her hands on his shoulders and jumped down. And among the bluebells they went on. And the bird sang after them.
“That bird repeats himself,” said Fleur.
Chapter XI.
PERAMBULATION
The instinct in regard to his daughter, which by now formed part of his protective covering against the machinations of Fate, had warned Soames, the day before, that Fleur was up to something when she went out while he was having breakfast. Seen through the window waving papers at him, she had an air of unreality, or at least an appearance of not telling him anything. As something not quite genuine in the voice warns a dog that he is about to be left, so was Soames warned by the ostentation of those papers. He finished his breakfast, therefore, too abruptly for one constitutionally given to marmalade, and set forth to Green Street. Since that young fellow Jon was staying there, this fashionable locality was the seat of any reasonable uneasiness. If, moreover, there was a place in the world where Soames could still unbutton his soul, it was his sister Winifred’s drawing-room, on which in 1879 he himself had impressed so deeply the personality of Louis Quinze that, in spite of jazz and Winifred’s desire to be in the heavier modern fashion, that monarch’s incurable levity was still to be observed.
Taking a somewhat circuitous course and looking in at the Connoisseurs’ Club on the way, Soames did not arrive until after Fleur’s departure. The first remark from Smither confirmed the uneasiness which had taken him forth.
“Mr. Soames! Oh! What a pity–Miss Fleur’s just gone! And nobody down yet but Mr. Jon.”
“Oh!” said Soames. “Did she see him?”
“Yes, sir. He’s in the dining-room, if you’d like to go in.”
Soames shook his head.
“How long are they staying, Smither?”
“Well, I did hear Mrs. Val say they were all going back to Wansdon the day after tomorrow. We shall be all alone again in case you were thinking of coming to us, Mr. Soames.”
Again Soames shook his head. “Too busy,” he said.
“What a beautiful young lady Miss Fleur ‘as grown, to be sure; such a colour she ‘ad this morning!”
Soames gave vent to an indeterminate sound. The news was not to his liking, but he could hardly say so in front of an institution. One could never tell how much Smither knew. She had creaked her way through pretty well every family secret in her time, from the days which his own matrimonial relations supplied Timothy’s with more than all the gossip it required. Yes, and were not his matrimonial relations, twice-laid, still supplying the raw material? Curiously sinister it seemed to him just then, that the son of his supplanter Jolyon should be here in this house, the nearest counterfeit of that old homing centre of the Forsytes, Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. What a perversity there was in things! And, repeating the indeterminate sound, he said:
“By the way, I suppose that Mr. Stainford never came here again?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Soames; he called yesterday to see Mr. Val; but Mr. Val was gone.”
“He did–did he?” said Soames, round-eyed. “What did he take this time?”
“Oh! Of course I knew better than to let him in.”
“You didn’t give him Mr. Val’s address in the country?”
“Oh, no, sir; he knew it.”
“Deuce he did!”
“Shall I tell the mistress you’re here, Mr. Soames? She must be nearly down by now.”
“No; don’t disturb her.”
“I am that sorry, sir; it’s always such a pleasure to her to see you.”
Old Smither bridling! A good soul! No such domestics nowadays! And, putting on his hat, Soames touched its brim, murmuring:
“Well, good-bye, Smither. Give her my love!” and went out.
‘So!’ he thought, ‘Fleur’s seen that boy!’ The whole thing would begin over again! He had known it! And, very slowly, with his hat rather over his eyes, he made for Hyde Park Corner. This was for him a moment in deep waters, when the heart must be hardened to this dangerous decision or to that. With the tendency for riding past the hounds inherited from his father James in all matters which threatened the main securities of life, Soames rushed on in thought to the ruin of his daughter’s future, wherein so sacredly was embalmed his own.
“Such a colour she ‘ad this morning!” When she waved those papers at him, she was pale enough–too pale! A confounded chance! Breakfast time, too–worst time in the day–most intimate! His naturally realistic nature apprehended all the suggestions that lay in breakfast. Those who breakfasted alone together, slept together as often as not. Putting things into her head! Yes; and they were not boy and girl now! Well, it all depended on what their feelings were, if they still had any. And who was to know? Who, in heaven’s name, was to know? Automatically he had begun to encompass the Artillery Memorial. A great white thing which he had never yet taken in properly, and didn’t know that he wanted to. Yet somehow it was very real, and suited to his mood–faced things; nothing high-flown about that gun–short, barking brute of a thing; or those dark men–drawn and devoted under their steel hats! Nothing pretty-pretty about that memorial–no angels’ wings there! No Georges and no dragons, nor horses on the prance; no panoply, and no panache! There it ‘sot’–as they used to say–squatted like a great white toad on the nation’s life. Concreted thunder. Not an illusion about it! Good thing to look at once a day, and see what you’d got to avoid. ‘I’d like to rub the noses of those Crown Princes and military cocks-o’-the-walk on it,’ thought Soames, ‘with their–what was it? – “fresh and merry wars!”’ And, crossing the road in the sunshine, he passed into the Park, moving towards Knightsbridge.
But about Fleur? Was he going to take the bull by the horns, or to lie low? Must be one thing or the other. He walked rapidly now, concentrated in face and movement, stalking as it were his own thoughts with a view to finality. He passed out at Knightsbridge, and after unseeing scrutiny of two or three small shops where in his time he had picked up many a bargain, for himself or shopman, he edged past Tattersall’s. That hung on–they still sold horses there, he believed! Horses had never been in his line, but he had not lived in Montpellier Square without knowing the habitues of Tattersall’s by sight. Like everything else that was crusted, they’d be pulling it down before long, he shouldn’t wonder, and putting up some motor place or cinema!
Suppose he talked to Michael? No! Worse than useless. Besides, he couldn’t talk about Fleur and that boy to anyone–thereby hung too long a tale; and the tale was his own. Montpellier Square! He had turned into the very place, whether by design he hardly knew. It hadn’t changed–but was all slicked up since he was last there, soon after the war. Builders and decorators must have done well lately–about the only people who had. He walked along the right side of the narrow square, where he had known turbulence and tragedy. There the house was, looking much as it used to, not quite so neat, and a little more florid. Why had he ever married that woman? What had made him so set on it? Well! She had done her best to deter him. But–God! – how he had wanted her! To this day he could recognise that. And at first–at first, he had thought, and perhaps she had thought–but who could tell? – HE never could! And then slowly–or was it quickly? – the end; a ghastly business! He stood still by the square railings, and stared at the doorway that had been his own, as if from its green paint and its brass number he might receive inspiration how to choke love in his own daughter for the son of his own wife–yes, how to choke it before it spread and choked her?
And as, on those days and nights of his first married life, returning home, he had sought in vain for inspiration how to awaken love, so now no inspiration came to tell him how to strangle love. And, doggedly, he turned out of the little square.
In a way it was ridiculous to be fussing about the matter; for, after all, Michael was a good young fellow, and her marriage far from unhappy, so far as he could see. As for young Jon, presumably he had married for love; there hadn’t been anything else to marry for, he believed–unless he had been misinformed, the girl and her brother had been museum pieces, two Americans without money to speak of. And yet–there was the moon, and he could not forget how Fleur had always wanted it. A desire to have what she hadn’t yet got was her leading characteristic. Impossible, too, to blink his memory of her, six years ago–to forget her body crumpled and crushed into the sofa in the dark that night when he came back from Robin Hill and broke the news to her. Perusing with his mind the record since, Soames had an acute and comfortless feeling that she had, as it were, been marking time, that all her fluttering activities, even the production of Kit, had been in the nature of a makeshift. Like the age to which she belonged, she had been lifting her feet up and down without getting anywhere, because she didn’t know where she wanted to get. And yet, of late, since she had been round the world, he had seemed to notice something quieter and more solid in her conduct, as if settled purposes were pushing up, and she were coming to terms at last with her daily life. Look, for instance, at the way she had tackled this canteen! And, turning his face homeward, Soames had a vision of a common not far from Mapledurham, where some fool had started a fire which had burned the gorse, and of the grass pushing up, almost impudently green and young, through the charred embers of that conflagration. Rather like things generally, when you thought of it! The war had burned them all out, but things, yes, and people, too–one noticed–were beginning to sprout a bit, as if they felt again it might be worth while. Why, even he himself had regained some of his old connoisseur’s desire to have nice things! It all depended on what you saw ahead, on whether you could eat and drink because tomorrow you didn’t die. With this Dawes Settlement and Locarno business, and the General Strike broken, there might even be another long calm, like the Victorian, which would make things possible. He was seventy-one, but one could always dwell on Timothy, who had lived to be a hundred, fixed star in shifting skies. And Fleur–only twenty-four–might almost outlive the century if she, or, rather the century, took care and bottled up its unruly passions, its disordered longings, and all that silly rushing along to nowhere in particular. If they steadied down, the age might yet become a golden, or a platinum, age at any rate. Even he might live to see the income tax at half-a-crown. ‘No,’ he thought, confused between his daughter and the age; ‘she mustn’t go throwing her cap over the windmill. It’s short-sighted!’ And, his blood warmed by perambulation, he became convinced that he would not speak to her, but lie low, and trust to that common-sense, of which she surely had her share–oh, yes! ‘Just keep my eyes open, and speak to no one,’ he thought; ‘least said, soonest mended.’
He had come again to the Artillery Memorial; and for the second time he moved around it. No! A bit of a blot–it seemed to him, now–so literal and heavy! Would that great white thing help Consols to rise? Some thing with wings might, after all, have been preferable. Some encouragement to people to take shares or go into domestic service; help, in fact, to make life liveable, instead of reminding them all the time that they had already once been blown to perdition and might again be. Those Artillery fellows–he had read somewhere–loved their guns, and wanted to be reminded of them. But did anybody else love their guns, or want reminder? Not those Artillery fellows would look at this every day outside St. George’s Hospital, but Tom, Dick, Harry, Peter, Gladys, Joan and Marjorie. ‘Mistake!’ thought Soames; ‘and a pretty heavy one. Something sedative, statue of Vulcan, or somebody on a horse; that’s what’s wanted!’ And remembering George III on a horse, he smiled grimly. Anyway, there the thing was, and would have to stay! But it was high time artists went back to nymphs and dolphins, and other evidences of a settled life.
When at lunch Fleur suggested that he would want a day’s law at Mapledurham before she and Kit came down, he again felt there was something behind; but, relieved enough at getting her, he let ‘the sleeping dog’ lie; nor did he mention his visit to Green Street.
“The weather looks settled,” he said. “You want some sun after that canteen. They talk about these ultra-violet rays. Plain sunshine used to be good enough. The doctors’ll be finding something extra-pink before long. If they’d only let things alone!”
“Darling, it amuses them.”
“Re-discovering what our grandmothers knew so well that we’ve forgotten ’em, and calling ’em by fresh names! A thing isn’t any more wholesome to eat, for instance, because they’ve invented the word ‘vitamin.’ Why, your grandfather ate an orange every day of his life, because his old doctor told him to, at the beginning of the last century. Vitamins! Don’t you let Kit get faddy about his food. It’s a long time before he’ll go to school–that’s one comfort. School feeding!”
“Did they feed you so badly, Dad?”
“Badly! How we grow up, I don’t know. We ate out principal meal in twenty minutes, and were playing football ten minutes after. But nobody thought about digestion, then.”
“Isn’t that an argument for thinking of it now?”
“A good digestion,” said Soames, “is the whole secret of life.” And he looked at his daughter. Thank God! SHE wasn’t peaky. So far as he knew, her digestion was excellent. She might fancy herself in love, or out of it; but so long as she was unconscious of her digestion, she would come through. “The thing is to walk as much as you can, in these days of cars,” he added.
“Yes,” said Fleur, “I had a nice walk this morning.”
Was she challenging him over her apple charlotte? If so, he wasn’t going to rise.
“So did I,” he said. “I went all about. We’ll have some golf down there.”
She looked at him for a second, then said a surprising thing:
“Yes, I believe I’m getting middle-aged enough for golf.”
Now what did she mean by that?
Chapter XII.
PRIVATE FEELINGS
On the day of the lunch party and the drive to Robin Hill, Michael really had a Committee, but he also had his private feelings and wanted to get on terms with them. There are natures in which discovery of what threatens happiness perverts to prejudice all judgment of the disturbing object. Michael’s was not such. He had taken a fancy to the young Englishman met at the home of that old American George Washington, partly, indeed, because he WAS English; and, seeing him now seated next to Fleur, – second cousin and first love–he was unable to revise the verdict. The boy had a nice face, and was better-looking than himself; he had attractive hair, a strong chin, straight eyes, and a modest bearing; there was no sense in blinking facts like those. The Free Trade in love, which obtained amongst pleasant people, forbade Michael to apply the cruder principles of Protection even in thoughts. Fortunately, the boy was married to this slim and attractive girl, who looked at one–as Mrs. Val had put it to him–like a guaranteed-pure water-nymph! Michael’s private feelings were therefore more concerned with Fleur than with the young man himself. But hers was a difficult face to read, a twisting brain to follow, a heart hard to get at; and–was Jon Forsyte the reason why? He remembered how in Cork Street this boy’s elderly half-sister–that fly-away little lady, June Forsyte–had blurted out to him that Fleur ought to have married her younger brother–first he had ever heard of it. How painfully it had affected him with its intimation that he played but second fiddle in the life of his beloved! He remembered, too, some cautious and cautionary allusions by “old Forsyte.” Coming from that model of secrecy and suppressed feelings, they, too, had made on Michael a deep and lasting impression, reinforced by his own failure to get at the bottom of Fleur’s heart. He went to his Committee with but half his mind on public matters. What had nipped that early love affair in the bud and given him his chance? Not sudden dislike, lack of health, or lack of money–not relationship, for Mrs. Val Dartie had married her second cousin apparently with everyone’s consent. Michael, it will be seen, had remained quite ignorant of the skeleton in Soames’ cupboard. Such Forsytes as he had met, reticent about family affairs, had never mentioned it; and Fleur had never even spoken of her first love, much less of the reason why it had come to naught. Yet, there must have been some reason; and it was idle to try and understand her present feelings without knowing what it was!
His Committee was on birth control in connection with the Ministry of Health; and, while listening to arguments why he should not support for other people what he practised himself, he was visited by an idea. Why not go and ask Jane Forsyte? He could find her in the telephone book–there could be but one with such a name.
“What do YOU say, Mont?”
“Well, sir, if we won’t export children to the Colonies or speed up emigration somehow, there’s nothing for it but birth control. In the upper and middle classes we’re doing it all the time, and blinking the moral side, if there is one; and I really don’t see how we can insist on a moral side for those who haven’t a quarter of our excuse for having lots of children.”
“My dear Mont,” said the chairman, with a grin, “aren’t you cutting there at the basis of all privilege?”
“Very probably,” said Michael, with an answering grin. “I think, of course, that child emigration is much better, but nobody else does, apparently.”
Everybody knew that ‘young Mont’ had a ‘bee in his bonnet’ about child emigration, and there was little disposition to encourage it to buzz. And, since no one was more aware than Michael of being that crank in politics, one who thought you could not eat your cake and have it, he said no more. Presently, feeling that they would go round and round the mulberry bush for some time yet, and sit on the fence after, he excused himself and went away.
He found the address he wanted: “Miss June Forsyte, Poplar House, Chiswick,” and mounted a Hammersmith ‘bus.
How fast things seemed coming back to the normal! Extraordinarily difficult to upset anything so vast, intricate, and elastic as a nation’s life. The ‘bus swung along among countless vehicles and pedestrian myriads, and Michael realised how firm were those two elements of stability in the modern state, the common need for eating, drinking, and getting about; and the fact that so many people could drive cars. ‘Revolution?’ he thought: ‘There never was a time when it had less chance. Machinery’s dead agin it.’ Machinery belonged to the settled state of things, and every day saw its reinforcement. The unskilled multitude and the Communistic visionaries, their leaders, only had a chance now where machinery and means of communication were still undeveloped, as in Russia. Brains, ability, and technical skill were by nature on the side of capital and individual enterprise, and were gaining ever more power.
“Poplar House” took some finding, and, when found, was a little house supporting a large studio with a north light. It stood, behind two poplar trees, tall, thin, white, like a ghost.
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Chapter X.
AFTER LUNCH
That the most pregnant function of human life is the meal, will be admitted by all who take part in these recurrent crises. The impossibility of getting down from table renders it the most formidable of human activities among people civilised to the point of swallowing not only their food but their feelings.
Such a conclusion at least was present to Fleur during that lunch. That her room was Spanish, reminded her that it was not with Jon she had spent her honeymoon in Spain. There had been a curious moment, too, before lunch; for, the first words Jon had spoken on seeing Michael, had been:
“Hallo! This is queer! Was Fleur with you that day at Mount Vernon?”
What was this? Had she been kept in the dark?
Then Michael had said:
“You remember, Fleur? The young Englishman I met at Mount Vernon.”
“‘Ships that pass in the night!’” said Fleur.
Mount Vernon! So THEY had met there! And she had not!
“Mount Vernon is lovely. But you ought to see Richmond, Anne. We could go after lunch. You haven’t been to Richmond for ages, I expect, Aunt Winifred. We could take Robin Hill on the way home, Jon.”
“Your old home, Jon? Oh! Do let’s!”
At that moment she hated the girl’s eager face at which Jon was looking.
“There’s the potentate,” he said.
“Oh!” said Fleur, quickly, “He’s at Monte Carlo. I read it yesterday. Could you come, Michael?”
“Afraid I’ve got a Committee. And the car can only manage five.”
“It would be just too lovely!”
Oh! that American enthusiasm! It was comforting to hear her Aunt’s flat voice opining that it would be a nice little run–the chestnuts would be out in the Park.
Had Michael really a Committee? She often knew what Michael really had, she generally knew more or less what he was thinking, but now she did not seem to know. In telling him last night of this invitation to lunch, she had carefully obliterated the impression by an embrace warmer than usual–he must not get any nonsense into his head about Jon! When, too, to her father she had said:
“Couldn’t Kit and I come down to you the day after tomorrow; but you’ll want a day there first, I’m afraid, if Mother’s not there,” how carefully she had listened to the tone of his reply:
“H’m! Ye–es! I’ll go down tomorrow morning.”
Had he scented anything; had Michael scented anything? She turned to Jon.
“Well, Jon, what d’you think of my house?”
“It’s very like you.”
“Is that a compliment?”
“To the house? Of course.”
“Francis didn’t exaggerate then?”
“Not a bit.”
“You haven’t seen Kit yet. We’ll have him down. Coaker, please ask Nurse to bring Kit down, unless he’s asleep… He’ll be three in July; quite a good walker already. It makes one frightfully old!”
The entrance of Kit and his silver dog caused a sort of cooing sound, speedily checked, for three of the women were of Forsyte stock, and the Forsytes did not coo. He stood there, blue and rather Dutch, with a slight frown and his hair bright, staring at the company.
“Come here, my son. This is Jon–your second cousin once removed.”
Kit advanced.
“S’all I bwing my ‘orse in?”
“Horse, Kit. No; shake hands.”
The small hand went up; Jon’s hand came down.
“You got dirty nails.”
She saw Jon flush, heard Anne’s: “Isn’t he just too cunning?” and said:
“Kit, you’re very rude. So would you have, if you’d been stoking an engine.”
“Yes, old man, I’ve been washing them ever since, but I can’t get them clean.”
“Why?”
“It’s got into the skin.”
“Le’ me see.”
“Go and shake hands with your great-aunt, Kit.”
“No.”
“Dear little chap,” said Winifred. “Such a bore, isn’t it, Kit?”
“Very well, then, go out again, and get your manners, and bring them in.”
“All wight.”
His exit, closed in by the silver dog, was followed by a general laugh; Fleur said, softly:
“Little wretch–poor Jon!” And through her lashes she saw Jon give her a grateful look…
In this mid-May fine weather the view from Richmond Hill had all the width and leafy charm which had drawn so many Forsytes in phaetons and barouches, in hansom cabs and motor cars from immemorial time, or at least from the days of George the Fourth. The winding river shone discreetly, far down there; and the trees of the encompassing landscape, though the oaks were still goldened, had just begun to have a brooding look; in July they would be heavy and blueish. Curiously, few houses showed among the trees and fields; very scanty evidence of man, within twelve miles of London! The spirit of an older England seemed to have fended jerry-builders from a prospect sacred to the ejaculations of four generations.
Of those five on the terrace Winifred best expressed that guarding spirit, with her:
“Really, it’s a very pretty view!”
A view–a view! And yet a view was not what it had been when old Jolyon travelled the Alps with that knapsack of brown leather and square shape, still in his grandson Jon’s possession; or Swithin above his greys, rolling his neck with consequence toward the lady by his side, had pointed with his whip down at the river and pouted: “A pooty little view!” Or James, crouched over his long knees in some gondola, had examined the Grand Canal at Venice with doubting eyes, and muttered: “They never told me the water was this colour!” Or Nicholas, taking his constitutional at Matlock, had opined that the gorge was the finest in England. No, a view was not what it had been! George Forsyte and Montague Dartie, with their backs to it, quizzically contemplating the Liberty ladies brought down to be fed, had started that rot; and now the young folk didn’t use the expression, but just ejaculated: “Christ!” or words to that effect.
But there was Anne, of course, like an American, with clasped hands, and:
“Isn’t it too lovely, Jon? It’s sort of romantic!”
And so to the Park, where Winifred chanted automatically at sight of the chestnuts, and every path and patch of fern and fallen tree drew from Holly or Jon some riding recollection.
“Look, Anne, that’s where I threw myself off my pony as a kid when I lost my stirrup and got so bored with being bumped.”
Or: “Look, Jon! Val and I had a race down that avenue. Oh! and there’s the log we used to jump. Still there!”
And Anne was in ecstasies over the deer and the grass, so different from the American varieties.
To Fleur the Park meant nothing.
“Jon,” she said, suddenly, “what are you going to do to get in at Robin Hill?”
“Tell the lodge-keeper that I want to show my wife where I lived as a boy; and give him a couple of good reasons. I don’t want to see the house, all new furniture and that.”
“Couldn’t we go in at the bottom, through the coppice?” and her eyes added: “As we did that day.”
“We might come on someone, and get turned back.”
The couple of good reasons secured their top entrance to the grounds; the ‘family’ was not ‘in residence.’
Bosinney’s masterpiece wore its mellowest aspect. The sun-blinds were down, for the sun was streaming on its front, past the old oak tree, where was now no swing. In Irene’s rose-garden, which had replaced old Jolyon’s fernery, buds were forming, but only one rose was out.
“‘Rose, you Spaniard!’” Something clutched Fleur’s heart. What was Jon thinking–what remembering, with those words and that frown? Just here she had sat between his father and his mother, believing that she and Jon would live here some day; together watch the roses bloom, the old oak drop its leaves; together say to their guests: “Look! There’s the Grand Stand at Epsom–see? Just above those poplars!”
And now she could not even walk beside him, who was playing guide to that girl, his wife! Beside her aunt she walked instead. Winifred was extremely intrigued. She had never yet seen this house, which Soames had built with the brains of young Bosinney; which Irene, with ‘that unfortunate little affair of hers’ had wrecked; this house where Old Uncle Jolyon, and Cousin Jolyon had died; and Irene, so ironically, had lived and had this boy Jon–a nice boy, too; this house of Forsyte song and story. It was very distinguished and belonged to a peer now, which, since it had gone out of the family, seemed suitable. In the walled fruit-garden, she said to Fleur:
“Your grandfather came down here once, to see how it was getting on. I remember his saying: ‘It’ll cost a pretty penny to keep up.’ And I should think it does. But it was a pity to sell it. Irene’s doing, of course! She never cared for the family. Now, if only–” But she stopped short of the words: “you and Jon had made a match of it.”
“What on earth would Jon have done, Auntie, with a great place like this so near London? He’s a poet.”
“Yes,” murmured Winifred–not very quick, because in her youth quickness had not been fashionable. “There’s too much glass, perhaps.” And they went down through the meadow.
The coppice! Still there at the bottom of the field. But Fleur lingered now, stood by the fallen log, waited till she could say:
“Listen! The cuckoo, Jon!”
The cuckoo’s song, and the sight of bluebells under the larch trees! Beside her Jon stood still! Yes, and the Spring stood still. There went the song–over and over!
“It was HERE we came on your mother, Jon, and our stars were crossed. Oh, Jon!”
Could so short a sound mean so much, say so much, be so startling? His face! She jumped on to the log at once.
“No ghosts, my dear!”
And, with a start, Jon looked up at her.
She put her hands on his shoulders and jumped down. And among the bluebells they went on. And the bird sang after them.
“That bird repeats himself,” said Fleur.
Chapter XI.
PERAMBULATION
The instinct in regard to his daughter, which by now formed part of his protective covering against the machinations of Fate, had warned Soames, the day before, that Fleur was up to something when she went out while he was having breakfast. Seen through the window waving papers at him, she had an air of unreality, or at least an appearance of not telling him anything. As something not quite genuine in the voice warns a dog that he is about to be left, so was Soames warned by the ostentation of those papers. He finished his breakfast, therefore, too abruptly for one constitutionally given to marmalade, and set forth to Green Street. Since that young fellow Jon was staying there, this fashionable locality was the seat of any reasonable uneasiness. If, moreover, there was a place in the world where Soames could still unbutton his soul, it was his sister Winifred’s drawing-room, on which in 1879 he himself had impressed so deeply the personality of Louis Quinze that, in spite of jazz and Winifred’s desire to be in the heavier modern fashion, that monarch’s incurable levity was still to be observed.
Taking a somewhat circuitous course and looking in at the Connoisseurs’ Club on the way, Soames did not arrive until after Fleur’s departure. The first remark from Smither confirmed the uneasiness which had taken him forth.
“Mr. Soames! Oh! What a pity–Miss Fleur’s just gone! And nobody down yet but Mr. Jon.”
“Oh!” said Soames. “Did she see him?”
“Yes, sir. He’s in the dining-room, if you’d like to go in.”
Soames shook his head.
“How long are they staying, Smither?”
“Well, I did hear Mrs. Val say they were all going back to Wansdon the day after tomorrow. We shall be all alone again in case you were thinking of coming to us, Mr. Soames.”
Again Soames shook his head. “Too busy,” he said.
“What a beautiful young lady Miss Fleur ‘as grown, to be sure; such a colour she ‘ad this morning!”
Soames gave vent to an indeterminate sound. The news was not to his liking, but he could hardly say so in front of an institution. One could never tell how much Smither knew. She had creaked her way through pretty well every family secret in her time, from the days which his own matrimonial relations supplied Timothy’s with more than all the gossip it required. Yes, and were not his matrimonial relations, twice-laid, still supplying the raw material? Curiously sinister it seemed to him just then, that the son of his supplanter Jolyon should be here in this house, the nearest counterfeit of that old homing centre of the Forsytes, Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. What a perversity there was in things! And, repeating the indeterminate sound, he said:
“By the way, I suppose that Mr. Stainford never came here again?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Soames; he called yesterday to see Mr. Val; but Mr. Val was gone.”
“He did–did he?” said Soames, round-eyed. “What did he take this time?”
“Oh! Of course I knew better than to let him in.”
“You didn’t give him Mr. Val’s address in the country?”
“Oh, no, sir; he knew it.”
“Deuce he did!”
“Shall I tell the mistress you’re here, Mr. Soames? She must be nearly down by now.”
“No; don’t disturb her.”
“I am that sorry, sir; it’s always such a pleasure to her to see you.”
Old Smither bridling! A good soul! No such domestics nowadays! And, putting on his hat, Soames touched its brim, murmuring:
“Well, good-bye, Smither. Give her my love!” and went out.
‘So!’ he thought, ‘Fleur’s seen that boy!’ The whole thing would begin over again! He had known it! And, very slowly, with his hat rather over his eyes, he made for Hyde Park Corner. This was for him a moment in deep waters, when the heart must be hardened to this dangerous decision or to that. With the tendency for riding past the hounds inherited from his father James in all matters which threatened the main securities of life, Soames rushed on in thought to the ruin of his daughter’s future, wherein so sacredly was embalmed his own.
“Such a colour she ‘ad this morning!” When she waved those papers at him, she was pale enough–too pale! A confounded chance! Breakfast time, too–worst time in the day–most intimate! His naturally realistic nature apprehended all the suggestions that lay in breakfast. Those who breakfasted alone together, slept together as often as not. Putting things into her head! Yes; and they were not boy and girl now! Well, it all depended on what their feelings were, if they still had any. And who was to know? Who, in heaven’s name, was to know? Automatically he had begun to encompass the Artillery Memorial. A great white thing which he had never yet taken in properly, and didn’t know that he wanted to. Yet somehow it was very real, and suited to his mood–faced things; nothing high-flown about that gun–short, barking brute of a thing; or those dark men–drawn and devoted under their steel hats! Nothing pretty-pretty about that memorial–no angels’ wings there! No Georges and no dragons, nor horses on the prance; no panoply, and no panache! There it ‘sot’–as they used to say–squatted like a great white toad on the nation’s life. Concreted thunder. Not an illusion about it! Good thing to look at once a day, and see what you’d got to avoid. ‘I’d like to rub the noses of those Crown Princes and military cocks-o’-the-walk on it,’ thought Soames, ‘with their–what was it? – “fresh and merry wars!”’ And, crossing the road in the sunshine, he passed into the Park, moving towards Knightsbridge.
But about Fleur? Was he going to take the bull by the horns, or to lie low? Must be one thing or the other. He walked rapidly now, concentrated in face and movement, stalking as it were his own thoughts with a view to finality. He passed out at Knightsbridge, and after unseeing scrutiny of two or three small shops where in his time he had picked up many a bargain, for himself or shopman, he edged past Tattersall’s. That hung on–they still sold horses there, he believed! Horses had never been in his line, but he had not lived in Montpellier Square without knowing the habitues of Tattersall’s by sight. Like everything else that was crusted, they’d be pulling it down before long, he shouldn’t wonder, and putting up some motor place or cinema!
Suppose he talked to Michael? No! Worse than useless. Besides, he couldn’t talk about Fleur and that boy to anyone–thereby hung too long a tale; and the tale was his own. Montpellier Square! He had turned into the very place, whether by design he hardly knew. It hadn’t changed–but was all slicked up since he was last there, soon after the war. Builders and decorators must have done well lately–about the only people who had. He walked along the right side of the narrow square, where he had known turbulence and tragedy. There the house was, looking much as it used to, not quite so neat, and a little more florid. Why had he ever married that woman? What had made him so set on it? Well! She had done her best to deter him. But–God! – how he had wanted her! To this day he could recognise that. And at first–at first, he had thought, and perhaps she had thought–but who could tell? – HE never could! And then slowly–or was it quickly? – the end; a ghastly business! He stood still by the square railings, and stared at the doorway that had been his own, as if from its green paint and its brass number he might receive inspiration how to choke love in his own daughter for the son of his own wife–yes, how to choke it before it spread and choked her?
And as, on those days and nights of his first married life, returning home, he had sought in vain for inspiration how to awaken love, so now no inspiration came to tell him how to strangle love. And, doggedly, he turned out of the little square.
In a way it was ridiculous to be fussing about the matter; for, after all, Michael was a good young fellow, and her marriage far from unhappy, so far as he could see. As for young Jon, presumably he had married for love; there hadn’t been anything else to marry for, he believed–unless he had been misinformed, the girl and her brother had been museum pieces, two Americans without money to speak of. And yet–there was the moon, and he could not forget how Fleur had always wanted it. A desire to have what she hadn’t yet got was her leading characteristic. Impossible, too, to blink his memory of her, six years ago–to forget her body crumpled and crushed into the sofa in the dark that night when he came back from Robin Hill and broke the news to her. Perusing with his mind the record since, Soames had an acute and comfortless feeling that she had, as it were, been marking time, that all her fluttering activities, even the production of Kit, had been in the nature of a makeshift. Like the age to which she belonged, she had been lifting her feet up and down without getting anywhere, because she didn’t know where she wanted to get. And yet, of late, since she had been round the world, he had seemed to notice something quieter and more solid in her conduct, as if settled purposes were pushing up, and she were coming to terms at last with her daily life. Look, for instance, at the way she had tackled this canteen! And, turning his face homeward, Soames had a vision of a common not far from Mapledurham, where some fool had started a fire which had burned the gorse, and of the grass pushing up, almost impudently green and young, through the charred embers of that conflagration. Rather like things generally, when you thought of it! The war had burned them all out, but things, yes, and people, too–one noticed–were beginning to sprout a bit, as if they felt again it might be worth while. Why, even he himself had regained some of his old connoisseur’s desire to have nice things! It all depended on what you saw ahead, on whether you could eat and drink because tomorrow you didn’t die. With this Dawes Settlement and Locarno business, and the General Strike broken, there might even be another long calm, like the Victorian, which would make things possible. He was seventy-one, but one could always dwell on Timothy, who had lived to be a hundred, fixed star in shifting skies. And Fleur–only twenty-four–might almost outlive the century if she, or, rather the century, took care and bottled up its unruly passions, its disordered longings, and all that silly rushing along to nowhere in particular. If they steadied down, the age might yet become a golden, or a platinum, age at any rate. Even he might live to see the income tax at half-a-crown. ‘No,’ he thought, confused between his daughter and the age; ‘she mustn’t go throwing her cap over the windmill. It’s short-sighted!’ And, his blood warmed by perambulation, he became convinced that he would not speak to her, but lie low, and trust to that common-sense, of which she surely had her share–oh, yes! ‘Just keep my eyes open, and speak to no one,’ he thought; ‘least said, soonest mended.’
He had come again to the Artillery Memorial; and for the second time he moved around it. No! A bit of a blot–it seemed to him, now–so literal and heavy! Would that great white thing help Consols to rise? Some thing with wings might, after all, have been preferable. Some encouragement to people to take shares or go into domestic service; help, in fact, to make life liveable, instead of reminding them all the time that they had already once been blown to perdition and might again be. Those Artillery fellows–he had read somewhere–loved their guns, and wanted to be reminded of them. But did anybody else love their guns, or want reminder? Not those Artillery fellows would look at this every day outside St. George’s Hospital, but Tom, Dick, Harry, Peter, Gladys, Joan and Marjorie. ‘Mistake!’ thought Soames; ‘and a pretty heavy one. Something sedative, statue of Vulcan, or somebody on a horse; that’s what’s wanted!’ And remembering George III on a horse, he smiled grimly. Anyway, there the thing was, and would have to stay! But it was high time artists went back to nymphs and dolphins, and other evidences of a settled life.
When at lunch Fleur suggested that he would want a day’s law at Mapledurham before she and Kit came down, he again felt there was something behind; but, relieved enough at getting her, he let ‘the sleeping dog’ lie; nor did he mention his visit to Green Street.
“The weather looks settled,” he said. “You want some sun after that canteen. They talk about these ultra-violet rays. Plain sunshine used to be good enough. The doctors’ll be finding something extra-pink before long. If they’d only let things alone!”
“Darling, it amuses them.”
“Re-discovering what our grandmothers knew so well that we’ve forgotten ’em, and calling ’em by fresh names! A thing isn’t any more wholesome to eat, for instance, because they’ve invented the word ‘vitamin.’ Why, your grandfather ate an orange every day of his life, because his old doctor told him to, at the beginning of the last century. Vitamins! Don’t you let Kit get faddy about his food. It’s a long time before he’ll go to school–that’s one comfort. School feeding!”
“Did they feed you so badly, Dad?”
“Badly! How we grow up, I don’t know. We ate out principal meal in twenty minutes, and were playing football ten minutes after. But nobody thought about digestion, then.”
“Isn’t that an argument for thinking of it now?”
“A good digestion,” said Soames, “is the whole secret of life.” And he looked at his daughter. Thank God! SHE wasn’t peaky. So far as he knew, her digestion was excellent. She might fancy herself in love, or out of it; but so long as she was unconscious of her digestion, she would come through. “The thing is to walk as much as you can, in these days of cars,” he added.
“Yes,” said Fleur, “I had a nice walk this morning.”
Was she challenging him over her apple charlotte? If so, he wasn’t going to rise.
“So did I,” he said. “I went all about. We’ll have some golf down there.”
She looked at him for a second, then said a surprising thing:
“Yes, I believe I’m getting middle-aged enough for golf.”
Now what did she mean by that?
Chapter XII.
PRIVATE FEELINGS
On the day of the lunch party and the drive to Robin Hill, Michael really had a Committee, but he also had his private feelings and wanted to get on terms with them. There are natures in which discovery of what threatens happiness perverts to prejudice all judgment of the disturbing object. Michael’s was not such. He had taken a fancy to the young Englishman met at the home of that old American George Washington, partly, indeed, because he WAS English; and, seeing him now seated next to Fleur, – second cousin and first love–he was unable to revise the verdict. The boy had a nice face, and was better-looking than himself; he had attractive hair, a strong chin, straight eyes, and a modest bearing; there was no sense in blinking facts like those. The Free Trade in love, which obtained amongst pleasant people, forbade Michael to apply the cruder principles of Protection even in thoughts. Fortunately, the boy was married to this slim and attractive girl, who looked at one–as Mrs. Val had put it to him–like a guaranteed-pure water-nymph! Michael’s private feelings were therefore more concerned with Fleur than with the young man himself. But hers was a difficult face to read, a twisting brain to follow, a heart hard to get at; and–was Jon Forsyte the reason why? He remembered how in Cork Street this boy’s elderly half-sister–that fly-away little lady, June Forsyte–had blurted out to him that Fleur ought to have married her younger brother–first he had ever heard of it. How painfully it had affected him with its intimation that he played but second fiddle in the life of his beloved! He remembered, too, some cautious and cautionary allusions by “old Forsyte.” Coming from that model of secrecy and suppressed feelings, they, too, had made on Michael a deep and lasting impression, reinforced by his own failure to get at the bottom of Fleur’s heart. He went to his Committee with but half his mind on public matters. What had nipped that early love affair in the bud and given him his chance? Not sudden dislike, lack of health, or lack of money–not relationship, for Mrs. Val Dartie had married her second cousin apparently with everyone’s consent. Michael, it will be seen, had remained quite ignorant of the skeleton in Soames’ cupboard. Such Forsytes as he had met, reticent about family affairs, had never mentioned it; and Fleur had never even spoken of her first love, much less of the reason why it had come to naught. Yet, there must have been some reason; and it was idle to try and understand her present feelings without knowing what it was!
His Committee was on birth control in connection with the Ministry of Health; and, while listening to arguments why he should not support for other people what he practised himself, he was visited by an idea. Why not go and ask Jane Forsyte? He could find her in the telephone book–there could be but one with such a name.
“What do YOU say, Mont?”
“Well, sir, if we won’t export children to the Colonies or speed up emigration somehow, there’s nothing for it but birth control. In the upper and middle classes we’re doing it all the time, and blinking the moral side, if there is one; and I really don’t see how we can insist on a moral side for those who haven’t a quarter of our excuse for having lots of children.”
“My dear Mont,” said the chairman, with a grin, “aren’t you cutting there at the basis of all privilege?”
“Very probably,” said Michael, with an answering grin. “I think, of course, that child emigration is much better, but nobody else does, apparently.”
Everybody knew that ‘young Mont’ had a ‘bee in his bonnet’ about child emigration, and there was little disposition to encourage it to buzz. And, since no one was more aware than Michael of being that crank in politics, one who thought you could not eat your cake and have it, he said no more. Presently, feeling that they would go round and round the mulberry bush for some time yet, and sit on the fence after, he excused himself and went away.
He found the address he wanted: “Miss June Forsyte, Poplar House, Chiswick,” and mounted a Hammersmith ‘bus.
How fast things seemed coming back to the normal! Extraordinarily difficult to upset anything so vast, intricate, and elastic as a nation’s life. The ‘bus swung along among countless vehicles and pedestrian myriads, and Michael realised how firm were those two elements of stability in the modern state, the common need for eating, drinking, and getting about; and the fact that so many people could drive cars. ‘Revolution?’ he thought: ‘There never was a time when it had less chance. Machinery’s dead agin it.’ Machinery belonged to the settled state of things, and every day saw its reinforcement. The unskilled multitude and the Communistic visionaries, their leaders, only had a chance now where machinery and means of communication were still undeveloped, as in Russia. Brains, ability, and technical skill were by nature on the side of capital and individual enterprise, and were gaining ever more power.
“Poplar House” took some finding, and, when found, was a little house supporting a large studio with a north light. It stood, behind two poplar trees, tall, thin, white, like a ghost.
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