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Dom - "Praetor?s Lunch"

Georg Ebers - "An Egyptian Princess, Volume 3."

Unknown - "The Bible, Douay Rheims, Book 51: Acts"

Gilbert Parker - "The Lane That Had No Turning, Volume 1."

The Forsyte Saga, Complete

J >> John Galsworthy >> The Forsyte Saga, Complete




Not in a hurry to get home, he dined in town at the Connoisseurs. While
eating a pear it suddenly occurred to him that, if he had not gone down
to Robin Hill, the boy might not have so decided. He remembered the
expression on his face while his mother was refusing the hand he had
held out. A strange, an awkward thought! Had Fleur cooked her own goose
by trying to make too sure?

He reached home at half-past nine. While the car was passing in at one
drive gate he heard the grinding sputter of a motor-cycle passing out
by the other. Young Mont, no doubt, so Fleur had not been lonely. But he
went in with a sinking heart. In the cream-panelled drawing-room she was
sitting with her elbows on her knees, and her chin on her clasped hands,
in front of a white camellia plant which filled the fireplace. That
glance at her before she saw him renewed his dread. What was she seeing
among those white camellias?

"Well, Father!"

Soames shook his head. His tongue failed him. This was murderous work!
He saw her eyes dilate, her lips quivering.

"What? What? Quick, Father!"

"My dear," said Soames, "I--I did my best, but--" And again he shook his
head.

Fleur ran to him, and put a hand on each of his shoulders.

"She?"

"No," muttered Soames; "he. I was to tell you that it was no use; he
must do what his father wished before he died." He caught her by the
waist. "Come, child, don't let them hurt you. They're not worth your
little finger."

Fleur tore herself from his grasp.

"You didn't you--couldn't have tried. You--you betrayed me, Father!"

Bitterly wounded, Soames gazed at her passionate figure writhing there
in front of him.

"You didn't try--you didn't--I was a fool! Iwon't believe he could--he
ever could! Only yesterday he--! Oh! why did I ask you?"

"Yes," said Soames, quietly, "why did you? I swallowed my feelings;
I did my best for you, against my judgment--and this is my reward.
Good-night!"

With every nerve in his body twitching he went toward the door.

Fleur darted after him.

"He gives me up? You mean that? Father!"

Soames turned and forced himself to answer:

"Yes."

"Oh!" cried Fleur. "What did you--what could you have done in those old
days?"

The breathless sense of really monstrous injustice cut the power of
speech in Soames' throat. What had he done! What had they done to him!

And with quite unconscious dignity he put his hand on his breast, and
looked at her.

"It's a shame!" cried Fleur passionately.

Soames went out. He mounted, slow and icy, to his picture gallery, and
paced among his treasures. Outrageous! Oh! Outrageous! She was spoiled!
Ah! and who had spoiled her? He stood still before the Goya copy.
Accustomed to her own way in everything. Flower of his life! And
now that she couldn't have it! He turned to the window for some air.
Daylight was dying, the moon rising, gold behind the poplars! What sound
was that? Why! That piano thing! A dark tune, with a thrum and a throb!
She had set it going--what comfort could she get from that? His eyes
caught movement down there beyond the lawn, under the trellis of rambler
roses and young acacia-trees, where the moonlight fell. There she was,
roaming up and down. His heart gave a little sickening jump. What would
she do under this blow? How could he tell? What did he know of her--he
had only loved her all his life--looked on her as the apple of his eye!
He knew nothing--had no notion. There she was--and that dark tune--and
the river gleaming in the moonlight!

'I must go out,' he thought.

He hastened down to the drawing-room, lighted just as he had left it,
with the piano thrumming out that waltz, or fox-trot, or whatever they
called it in these days, and passed through on to the verandah.

Where could he watch, without her seeing him? And he stole down through
the fruit garden to the boat-house. He was between her and the
river now, and his heart felt lighter. She was his daughter, and
Annette's--she wouldn't do anything foolish; but there it was--he didn't
know! From the boat house window he could see the last acacia and the
spin of her skirt when she turned in her restless march. That tune
had run down at last--thank goodness! He crossed the floor and looked
through the farther window at the water slow-flowing past the lilies.
It made little bubbles against them, bright where a moon-streak fell.
He remembered suddenly that early morning when he had slept on the
house-boat after his father died, and she had just been born--nearly
nineteen years ago! Even now he recalled the unaccustomed world when
he woke up, the strange feeling it had given him. That day the second
passion of his life began--for this girl of his, roaming under the
acacias. What a comfort she had been to him! And all the soreness and
sense of outrage left him. If he could make her happy again, he didn't
care! An owl flew, queeking, queeking; a bat flitted by; the moonlight
brightened and broadened on the water. How long was she going to roam
about like this! He went back to the window, and suddenly saw her coming
down to the bank. She stood quite close, on the landing-stage. And
Soames watched, clenching his hands. Should he speak to her? His
excitement was intense. The stillness of her figure, its youth, its
absorption in despair, in longing, in--itself. He would always remember
it, moonlit like that; and the faint sweet reek of the river and the
shivering of the willow leaves. She had everything in the world that he
could give her, except the one thing that she could not have because
of him! The perversity of things hurt him at that moment, as might a
fish-bone in his throat.

Then, with an infinite relief, he saw her turn back toward the house.
What could he give her to make amends? Pearls, travel, horses, other
young men--anything she wanted--that he might lose the memory of her
young figure lonely by the water! There! She had set that tune going
again! Why--it was a mania! Dark, thrumming, faint, travelling from the
house. It was as though she had said: "If I can't have something to keep
me going, I shall die of this!" Soames dimly understood. Well, if it
helped her, let her keep it thrumming on all night! And, mousing back
through the fruit garden, he regained the verandah. Though he meant to
go in and speak to her now, he still hesitated, not knowing what to say,
trying hard to recall how it felt to be thwarted in love. He ought to
know, ought to remember--and he could not! Gone--all real recollection;
except that it had hurt him horribly. In this blankness he stood passing
his handkerchief over hands and lips, which were very dry. By craning
his head he could just see Fleur, standing with her back to that piano
still grinding out its tune, her arms tight crossed on her breast, a
lighted cigarette between her lips, whose smoke half veiled her face.
The expression on it was strange to Soames, the eyes shone and stared,
and every feature was alive with a sort of wretched scorn and anger.
Once or twice he had seen Annette look like that--the face was too
vivid, too naked, not his daughter's at that moment. And he dared not go
in, realising the futility of any attempt at consolation. He sat down in
the shadow of the ingle-nook.

Monstrous trick, that Fate had played him! Nemesis! That old unhappy
marriage! And in God's name-why? How was he to know, when he wanted
Irene so violently, and she consented to be his, that she would never
love him? The tune died and was renewed, and died again, and still
Soames sat in the shadow, waiting for he knew not what. The fag of
Fleur's cigarette, flung through the window, fell on the grass; he
watched it glowing, burning itself out. The moon had freed herself above
the poplars, and poured her unreality on the garden. Comfortless light,
mysterious, withdrawn--like the beauty of that woman who had never loved
him--dappling the nemesias and the stocks with a vesture not of earth.
Flowers! And his flower so unhappy! Ah! Why could one not put happiness
into Local Loans, gild its edges, insure it against going down?

Light had ceased to flow out now from the drawing-room window. All was
silent and dark in there. Had she gone up? He rose, and, tiptoeing,
peered in. It seemed so! He entered. The verandah kept the moonlight
out; and at first he could see nothing but the outlines of furniture
blacker than the darkness. He groped toward the farther window to shut
it. His foot struck a chair, and he heard a gasp. There she was, curled
and crushed into the corner of the sofa! His hand hovered. Did she want
his consolation? He stood, gazing at that ball of crushed frills and
hair and graceful youth, trying to burrow its way out of sorrow. How
leave her there? At last he touched her hair, and said:

"Come, darling, better go to bed. I'll make it up to you, somehow." How
fatuous! But what could he have said?




IX.--UNDER THE OAK-TREE

When their visitor had disappeared Jon and his mother stood without
speaking, till he said suddenly:

"I ought to have seen him out."

But Soames was already walking down the drive, and Jon went upstairs to
his father's studio, not trusting himself to go back.

The expression on his mother's face confronting the man she had once
been married to, had sealed a resolution growing within him ever
since she left him the night before. It had put the finishing touch
of reality. To marry Fleur would be to hit his mother in the face; to
betray his dead father! It was no good! Jon had the least resentful of
natures. He bore his parents no grudge in this hour of his distress. For
one so young there was a rather strange power in him of seeing things
in some sort of proportion. It was worse for Fleur, worse for his mother
even, than it was for him. Harder than to give up was to be given up,
or to be the cause of some one you loved giving up for you. He must not,
would not behave grudgingly! While he stood watching the tardy sunlight,
he had again that sudden vision of the world which had come to him the
night before. Sea on sea, country on country, millions on millions
of people, all with their own lives, energies, joys, griefs, and
suffering--all with things they had to give up, and separate struggles
for existence. Even though he might be willing to give up all else for
the one thing he couldn't have, he would be a fool to think his feelings
mattered much in so vast a world, and to behave like a cry-baby or a
cad. He pictured the people who had nothing--the millions who had given
up life in the War, the millions whom the War had left with life and
little else; the hungry children he had read of, the shattered men;
people in prison, every kind of unfortunate. And--they did not help him
much. If one had to miss a meal, what comfort in the knowledge that many
others had to miss it too? There was more distraction in the thought of
getting away out into this vast world of which he knew nothing yet. He
could not go on staying here, walled in and sheltered, with everything
so slick and comfortable, and nothing to do but brood and think what
might have been. He could not go back to Wansdon, and the memories of
Fleur. If he saw her again he could not trust himself; and if he stayed
here or went back there, he would surely see her. While they were within
reach of each other that must happen. To go far away and quickly was the
only thing to do. But, however much he loved his mother, he did not want
to go away with her. Then feeling that was brutal, he made up his mind
desperately to propose that they should go to Italy. For two hours in
that melancholy room he tried to master himself, then dressed solemnly
for dinner.

His mother had done the same. They ate little, at some length, and
talked of his father's catalogue. The show was arranged for October, and
beyond clerical detail there was nothing more to do.

After dinner she put on a cloak and they went out; walked a little,
talked a little, till they were standing silent at last beneath the
oak-tree. Ruled by the thought: 'If I show anything, I show all,' Jon
put his arm through hers and said quite casually:

"Mother, let's go to Italy."

Irene pressed his arm, and said as casually:

"It would be very nice; but I've been thinking you ought to see and do
more than you would if I were with you."

"But then you'd be alone."

"I was once alone for more than twelve years. Besides, I should like to
be here for the opening of Father's show."

Jon's grip tightened round her arm; he was not deceived.

"You couldn't stay here all by yourself; it's too big."

"Not here, perhaps. In London, and I might go to Paris, after the show
opens. You ought to have a year at least, Jon, and see the world."

"Yes, I'd like to see the world and rough it. But I don't want to leave
you all alone."

"My dear, I owe you that at least. If it's for your good, it'll be for
mine. Why not start tomorrow? You've got your passport."

"Yes; if I'm going it had better be at once. Only--Mother--if--if I
wanted to stay out somewhere--America or anywhere, would you mind coming
presently?"

"Wherever and whenever you send for me. But don't send until you really
want me."

Jon drew a deep breath.

"I feel England's choky."

They stood a few minutes longer under the oak-tree--looking out to where
the grand stand at Epsom was veiled in evening. The branches kept the
moonlight from them, so that it only fell everywhere else--over the
fields and far away, and on the windows of the creepered house behind,
which soon would be to let.




X.--FLEUR'S WEDDING

The October paragraphs describing the wedding of Fleur Forsyte to
Michael Mont hardly conveyed the symbolic significance of this event. In
the union of the great-granddaughter of "Superior Dosset" with the heir
of a ninth baronet was the outward and visible sign of that merger of
class in class which buttresses the political stability of a realm. The
time had come when the Forsytes might resign their natural resentment
against a "flummery" not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still
more natural due of their possessive instincts. Besides, they had to
mount to make room for all those so much more newly rich. In that
quiet but tasteful ceremony in Hanover Square, and afterward among the
furniture in Green Street, it had been impossible for those not in the
know to distinguish the Forsyte troop from the Mont contingent--so
far away was "Superior Dosset" now. Was there, in the crease of his
trousers, the expression of his moustache, his accent, or the shine
on his top-hat, a pin to choose between Soames and the ninth baronet
himself? Was not Fleur as self-possessed, quick, glancing, pretty,
and hard as the likeliest Muskham, Mont, or Charwell filly present? If
anything, the Forsytes had it in dress and looks and manners. They had
become "upper class" and now their name would be formally recorded in
the Stud Book, their money joined to land. Whether this was a little
late in the day, and those rewards of the possessive instinct, lands and
money, destined for the melting-pot--was still a question so moot that
it was not mooted. After all, Timothy had said Consols were goin'
up. Timothy, the last, the missing link; Timothy, in extremis on the
Bayswater Road--so Francie had reported. It was whispered, too, that
this young Mont was a sort of socialist--strangely wise of him, and in
the nature of insurance, considering the days they lived in. There was
no uneasiness on that score. The landed classes produced that sort
of amiable foolishness at times, turned to safe uses and confined to
theory. As George remarked to his sister Francie: "They'll soon be
having puppies--that'll give him pause."

The church with white flowers and something blue in the middle of
the East window looked extremely chaste, as though endeavouring to
counteract the somewhat lurid phraseology of a Service calculated to
keep the thoughts of all on puppies. Forsytes, Haymans, Tweetymans,
sat in the left aisle; Monts, Charwells; Muskhams in the right; while
a sprinkling of Fleur's fellow-sufferers at school, and of Mont's
fellow-sufferers in, the War, gaped indiscriminately from either side,
and three maiden ladies, who had dropped in on their way from Skyward's
brought up the rear, together with two Mont retainers and Fleur's old
nurse. In the unsettled state of the country as full a house as could be
expected.

Mrs. Val Dartie, who sat with her husband in the third row, squeezed his
hand more than once during the performance. To her, who knew the plot
of this tragi-comedy, its most dramatic moment was well-nigh painful.
'I wonder if Jon knows by instinct,' she thought--Jon, out in British
Columbia. She had received a letter from him only that morning which had
made her smile and say:

"Jon's in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in California.
He thinks it's too nice there."

"Oh!" said Val, "so he's beginning to see a joke again."

"He's bought some land and sent for his mother."

"What on earth will she do out there?"

"All she cares about is Jon. Do you still think it a happy release?"

Val's shrewd eyes narrowed to grey pin-points between their dark lashes.

"Fleur wouldn't have suited him a bit. She's not bred right."

"Poor little Fleur!" sighed Holly. Ah! it was strange--this marriage.
The young man, Mont, had caught her on the rebound, of course, in the
reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone down. Such a plunge could
not but be--as Val put it--an outside chance. There was little to be
told from the back view of her young cousin's veil, and Holly's eyes
reviewed the general aspect of this Christian wedding. She, who had
made a love-match which had been successful, had a horror of unhappy
marriages. This might not be one in the end--but it was clearly a
toss-up; and to consecrate a toss-up in this fashion with manufactured
unction before a crowd of fashionable free-thinkers--for who thought
otherwise than freely, or not at all, when they were "dolled" up--seemed
to her as near a sin as one could find in an age which had abolished
them. Her eyes wandered from the prelate in his robes (a Charwell-the
Forsytes had not as yet produced a prelate) to Val, beside her,
thinking--she was certain--of the Mayfly filly at fifteen to one for
the Cambridgeshire. They passed on and caught the profile of the ninth
baronet, in counterfeitment of the kneeling process. She could just see
the neat ruck above his knees where he had pulled his trousers up, and
thought: 'Val's forgotten to pull up his!' Her eyes passed to the pew in
front of her, where Winifred's substantial form was gowned with passion,
and on again to Soames and Annette kneeling side by side. A little
smile came on her lips--Prosper Profond, back from the South Seas of the
Channel, would be kneeling too, about six rows behind. Yes! This was a
funny "small" business, however it turned out; still it was in a proper
church and would be in the proper papers to-morrow morning.

They had begun a hymn; she could hear the ninth baronet across the
aisle, singing of the hosts of Midian. Her little finger touched Val's
thumb--they were holding the same hymn-book--and a tiny thrill passed
through her, preserved--from twenty years ago. He stooped and whispered:

"I say, d'you remember the rat?" The rat at their wedding in Cape
Colony, which had cleaned its whiskers behind the table at the
Registrar's! And between her little and third forgers she squeezed his
thumb hard.

The hymn was over, the prelate had begun to deliver his discourse. He
told them of the dangerous times they lived in, and the awful conduct
of the House of Lords in connection with divorce. They were all
soldiers--he said--in the trenches under the poisonous gas of the Prince
of Darkness, and must be manful. The purpose of marriage was children,
not mere sinful happiness.

An imp danced in Holly's eyes--Val's eyelashes were meeting. Whatever
happened; he must not snore. Her finger and thumb closed on his thigh
till he stirred uneasily.

The discourse was over, the danger past. They were signing in the
vestry; and general relaxation had set in.

A voice behind her said:

"Will she stay the course?"

"Who's that?" she whispered.

"Old George Forsyte!"

Holly demurely scrutinized one of whom she had often heard. Fresh
from South Africa, and ignorant of her kith and kin, she never saw one
without an almost childish curiosity. He was very big, and very dapper;
his eyes gave her a funny feeling of having no particular clothes.

"They're off!" she heard him say.

They came, stepping from the chancel. Holly looked first in young Mont's
face. His lips and ears were twitching, his eyes, shifting from his feet
to the hand within his arm, stared suddenly before them as if to face
a firing party. He gave Holly the feeling that he was spiritually
intoxicated. But Fleur! Ah! That was different. The girl was perfectly
composed, prettier than ever, in her white robes and veil over her
banged dark chestnut hair; her eyelids hovered demure over her dark
hazel eyes. Outwardly, she seemed all there. But inwardly, where was
she? As those two passed, Fleur raised her eyelids--the restless glint
of those clear whites remained on Holly's vision as might the flutter of
caged bird's wings.

In Green Street Winifred stood to receive, just a little less composed
than usual. Soames' request for the use of her house had come on her
at a deeply psychological moment. Under the influence of a remark
of Prosper Profond, she had begun to exchange her Empire for
Expressionistic furniture. There were the most amusing arrangements,
with violet, green, and orange blobs and scriggles, to be had at
Mealard's. Another month and the change would have been complete. Just
now, the very "intriguing" recruits she had enlisted, did not march too
well with the old guard. It was as if her regiment were half in khaki,
half in scarlet and bearskins. But her strong and comfortable character
made the best of it in a drawing-room which typified, perhaps, more
perfectly than she imagined, the semi-bolshevized imperialism of her
country. After all, this was a day of merger, and you couldn't have too
much of it! Her eyes travelled indulgently among her guests. Soames had
gripped the back of a buhl chair; young Mont was behind that "awfully
amusing" screen, which no one as yet had been able to explain to her.
The ninth baronet had shied violently at a round scarlet table, inlaid
under glass with blue Australian butteries' wings, and was clinging
to her Louis-Quinze cabinet; Francie Forsyte had seized the new
mantel-board, finely carved with little purple grotesques on an ebony
ground; George, over by the old spinet, was holding a little sky-blue
book as if about to enter bets; Prosper Profond was twiddling the knob
of the open door, black with peacock-blue panels; and Annette's hands,
close by, were grasping her own waist; two Muskhams clung to the balcony
among the plants, as if feeling ill; Lady Mont, thin and brave-looking,
had taken up her long-handled glasses and was gazing at the central
light shade, of ivory and orange dashed with deep magenta, as if the
heavens had opened. Everybody, in fact, seemed holding on to something.
Only Fleur, still in her bridal dress, was detached from all support,
flinging her words and glances to left and right.

The room was full of the bubble and the squeak of conversation.
Nobody could hear anything that anybody said; which seemed of little
consequence, since no one waited for anything so slow as an answer.
Modern conversation seemed to Winifred so different from the days of her
prime, when a drawl was all the vogue. Still it was "amusing," which,
of course, was all that mattered. Even the Forsytes were talking
with extreme rapidity--Fleur and Christopher, and Imogen, and young
Nicholas's youngest, Patrick. Soames, of course, was silent; but
George, by the spinet, kept up a running commentary, and Francie, by her
mantel-shelf. Winifred drew nearer to the ninth baronet. He seemed to
promise a certain repose; his nose was fine and drooped a little, his
grey moustaches too; and she said, drawling through her smile:

"It's rather nice, isn't it?"

His reply shot out of his smile like a snipped bread pellet

"D'you remember, in Frazer, the tribe that buries the bride up to the
waist?"

He spoke as fast as anybody! He had dark lively little eyes, too, all
crinkled round like a Catholic priest's. Winifred felt suddenly he might
say things she would regret.

"They're always so amusing--weddings," she murmured, and moved on
to Soames. He was curiously still, and Winifred saw at once what was
dictating his immobility. To his right was George Forsyte, to his left
Annette and Prosper Profond. He could not move without either seeing
those two together, or the reflection of them in George Forsyte's japing
eyes. He was quite right not to be taking notice.

"They say Timothy's sinking;" he said glumly.

"Where will you put him, Soames?"

"Highgate." He counted on his fingers. "It'll make twelve of them there,
including wives. How do you think Fleur looks?"