The Forsyte Saga (45 page)

On receiving Soames's card, Jolyon said to the maid—for he could not abide butlers—“Show him into the study, please, and say I'll be there in a minute”; and then he looked at Holly and asked:

“Do you remember the lady in grey, who used to give you music lessons?”

“Oh yes, why? Has she come?”

Jolyon shook his head, and, changing his holland blouse for a coat, was silent, perceiving suddenly that such history was not for those young ears. His face, in fact, became whimsical perplexity incarnate while he journeyed towards the study.

Standing by the French window, looking out across the terrace at the oak tree, were two figures, middle-aged and young, and he thought: “Who's that boy? Surely they never had a child.”

The elder figure turned. The meeting of those two Forsytes of the second generation, so much more sophisticated than the first, in the house built for the one and owned and occupied by the other, was marked by subtle defensiveness beneath distinct attempt at cordiality. “Has he come about his wife?” Jolyon was thinking; and Soames, “How shall I begin?” while Val, brought to break the ice, stood negligently scrutinizing this “bearded pard” from under his dark, thick eyelashes.

“This is Val Dartie,” said Soames, “my sister's son. He's just going up to Oxford. I thought I'd like him to know your boy.”

“Ah! I'm sorry Jolly's away. What college?”

“B.N.C.,” replied Val.

“Jolly's at the House, but he'll be delighted to look you up.”

“Thanks awfully.”

“Holly's in—if you could put up with a female relation, she'd show you round. You'll find her in the hall if you go through the curtains. I was just painting her.”

With another “Thanks, awfully!” Val vanished, leaving the two cousins with the ice unbroken.

“I see you've some drawings at the ‘Water Colours,'” said Soames.

Jolyon winced. He had been out of touch with the Forsyte family at large for twenty-six years, but they were connected in his mind with Frith's
Derby Day
and Landseer prints. He had heard from June that Soames was a connoisseur, which made it worse. He had become aware, too, of a curious sensation of repugnance.

“I haven't seen you for a long time,” he said.

“No,” answered Soames between close lips, “not since—as a matter of fact, it's about that I've come. You're her trustee, I'm told.”

Jolyon nodded.

“Twelve years is a long time,” said Soames rapidly: “I—I'm tired of it.”

Jolyon found no more appropriate answer than:

“Won't you smoke?”

“No, thanks.”

Jolyon himself lit a cigarette.

“I wish to be free,” said Soames abruptly.

“I don't see her,” murmured Jolyon through the fume of his cigarette.

“But you know where she lives, I suppose?”

Jolyon nodded. He did not mean to give her address without permission. Soames seemed to divine his thought.

“I don't want her address,” he said; “I know it.”

“What exactly do you want?”

“She deserted me. I want a divorce.”

“Rather late in the day, isn't it?”

“Yes,” said Soames. And there was a silence.

“I don't know much about these things—at least, I've forgotten,” said Jolyon with a wry smile. He himself had had to wait for death to grant him a divorce from the first Mrs. Jolyon. “Do you wish me to see her about it?”

Soames raised his eyes to his cousin's face. “I suppose there's someone,” he said.

A shrug moved Jolyon's shoulders.

“I don't know at all. I imagine you may have both lived as if the other were dead. It's usual in these cases.”

Soames turned to the window. A few early fallen oak leaves strewed the terrace already, and were rolling round in the wind. Jolyon saw the figures of Holly and Val Dartie moving across the lawn towards the stables. “I'm not going to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds,” he thought. “I must act for her. The Dad would have wished that.” And for a swift moment he seemed to see his father's figure in the old armchair, just beyond Soames, sitting with knees crossed,
The Times
in his hand. It vanished.

“My father was fond of her,” he said quietly.

“Why he should have been I don't know,” Soames answered without looking round. “She brought trouble to your daughter June; she brought trouble to everyone. I gave her all she wanted. I would have given her even—forgiveness—but she chose to leave me.”

In Jolyon compassion was checked by the tone of that close voice. What was there in the fellow that made it so difficult to be sorry for him?

“I can go and see her, if you like,” he said. “I suppose she might be glad of a divorce, but I know nothing.”

Soames nodded.

“Yes, please go. As I say, I know her address; but I've no wish to see her.” His tongue was busy with his lips, as if they were very dry.

“You'll have some tea?” said Jolyon, stifling the words: “And see the house.” And he led the way into the hall. When he had rung the bell and ordered tea, he went to his easel to turn his drawing to the wall. He could not bear, somehow, that his work should be seen by Soames, who was standing there in the middle of the great room which had been designed expressly to afford wall space for his own pictures. In his cousin's face, with its unseizable family likeness to himself, and its chinny, narrow, concentrated look, Jolyon saw that which moved him to the thought: “That chap could never forget anything—nor ever give himself away. He's pathetic!”

When young Val left the presence of the last generation he was thinking: “This is jolly dull! Uncle Soames does take the bun. I wonder what this filly's like?” He anticipated no pleasure from her society; and suddenly he saw her standing there looking at him. Why, she was pretty! What luck!

“I'm afraid you don't know me,” he said. “My name's Val Dartie—I'm once removed, second cousin, something like that, you know. My mother's name was Forsyte.”

Holly, whose slim brown hand remained in his because she was too shy to withdraw it, said:

“I don't know any of my relations. Are there many?”

“Tons. They're awful—most of them. At least, I don't know—some of them. One's relations always are, aren't they?”

“I expect they think one awful too,” said Holly.

“I don't know why they should. No one could think you awful, of course.”

Holly looked at him—the wistful candour in those grey eyes gave young Val a sudden feeling that he must protect her.

“I mean there are people and people,” he added astutely. “Your dad looks awfully decent, for instance.”

“Oh yes!” said Holly fervently; “he is.”

A flush mounted in Val's cheeks—that scene in the Pandemonium promenade—the dark man with the pink carnation developing into his own father! “But you know what the Forsytes are,” he said almost viciously. “Oh! I forgot; you don't.”

“What are they?”

“Oh! fearfully careful; not sportsmen a bit. Look at Uncle Soames!”

“I'd like to,” said Holly.

Val resisted a desire to run his arm through hers. “Oh! no,” he said, “let's go out. You'll see him quite soon enough. What's your brother like?”

Holly led the way on to the terrace and down to the lawn without answering. How describe Jolly, who, ever since she remembered anything, had been her lord, master, and ideal?

“Does he sit on you?” said Val shrewdly. “I shall be knowing him at Oxford. Have you got any horses?”

Holly nodded. “Would you like to see the stables?”

“Rather!”

They passed under the oak tree, through a thin shrubbery, into the stableyard. There under a clock tower lay a fluffy brown-and-white dog, so old that he did not get up, but faintly waved the tail curled over his back.

“That's Balthasar,” said Holly; “he's so old—awfully old, nearly as old as I am. Poor old boy! He's devoted to Dad.”

“Balthasar! That's a rum name. He isn't purebred you know.”

“No! but he's a darling,” and she bent down to stroke the dog. Gentle and supple, with dark covered head and slim browned neck and hands, she seemed to Val strange and sweet, like a thing slipped between him and all previous knowledge.

“When grandfather died,” she said, “he wouldn't eat for two days. He saw him die, you know.”

“Was that old Uncle Jolyon? Mother always says he was a topper.”

“He was,” said Holly simply, and opened the stable door.

In a loose box stood a silver roan of about fifteen hands, with a long black tail and mane. “This is mine—Fairy.”

“Ah!” said Val, “she's a jolly palfrey. But you ought to bang her tail. She'd look much smarter.” Then catching her wondering look, he thought suddenly: “I don't know—anything she likes!” And he took a long sniff of the stable air. “Horses are ripping, aren't they? My Dad . . .” he stopped.

“Yes?” said Holly.

An impulse to unbosom himself almost overcame him—but not quite. “Oh! I don't know he's often gone a mucker over them. I'm jolly keen on them too—riding and hunting. I like racing awfully, as well; I should like to be a gentleman rider.” And oblivious of the fact that he had but one more day in town, with two engagements, he plumped out:

“I say, if I hire a gee tomorrow, will you come a ride in Richmond Park?”

Holly clasped her hands.

“Oh yes! I simply love riding. But there's Jolly's horse; why don't you ride him? Here he is. We could go after tea.”

Val looked doubtfully at his trousered legs.

He had imagined them immaculate before her eyes in high brown boots and Bedford cords.

“I don't much like riding his horse,” he said. “He mightn't like it. Besides, Uncle Soames wants to get back, I expect. Not that I believe in buckling under to him, you know. You haven't got an uncle, have you? This is rather a good beast,” he added, scrutinising Jolly's horse, a dark brown, which was showing the whites of its eyes. “You haven't got any hunting here, I suppose?”

“No; I don't know that I want to hunt. It must be awfully exciting, of course; but it's cruel, isn't it? June says so.”

“Cruel?” ejaculated Val. “Oh! that's all rot. Who's June?”

“My sister—my half-sister, you know—much older than me.” She had put her hands up to both cheeks of Jolly's horse, and was rubbing her nose against its nose with a gentle snuffling noise which seemed to have an hypnotic effect on the animal. Val contemplated her cheek resting against the horse's nose, and her eyes gleaming round at him. “She's really a duck,” he thought.

They returned to the house less talkative, followed this time by the dog Balthasar, walking more slowly than anything on earth, and clearly expecting them not to exceed his speed limit.

“This is a ripping place,” said Val from under the oak tree, where they had paused to allow the dog Balthasar to come up.

“Yes,” said Holly, and sighed. “Of course I want to go everywhere. I wish I were a gypsy.”

“Yes, gypsies are jolly,” replied Val, with a conviction which had just come to him; “you're rather like one, you know.”

Holly's face shone suddenly and deeply, like dark leaves gilded by the sun.

“To go mad-rabbiting everywhere and see everything, and live in the open—oh! wouldn't it be fun?”

“Let's do it!” said Val.

“Oh yes, let's!”

“It'd be grand sport, just you and I.”

Then Holly perceived the quaintness and gushed.

“Well, we've got to do it,” said Val obstinately, but reddening too.

“I believe in doing things you want to do. What's down there?”

“The kitchen garden, and the pond and the coppice, and the farm.”

“Let's go down!”

Holly glanced back at the house.

“It's teatime, I expect; there's Dad beckoning.”

Val, uttering a growly sound, followed her towards the house.

When they reentered the hall gallery the sight of two middle-aged Forsytes drinking tea together had its magical effect, and they became quite silent. It was, indeed, an impressive spectacle. The two were seated side by side on an arrangement in marquetry which looked like three silvery pink chairs made one, with a low tea table in front of them. They seemed to have taken up that position, as far apart as the seat would permit, so that they need not look at each other too much; and they were eating and drinking rather than talking—Soames with his air of despising the tea cake as it disappeared, Jolyon of finding himself slightly amusing. To the casual eye neither would have seemed greedy, but both were getting through a good deal of sustenance. The two young ones having been supplied with food, the process went on silent and absorbative, till, with the advent of cigarettes, Jolyon said to Soames:

“And how's Uncle James?”

“Thanks, very shaky.”

“We're a wonderful family, aren't we? The other day I was calculating the average age of the ten old Forsytes from my father's family Bible. I make it eighty-four already, and five still living. They ought to beat the record;” and looking whimsically at Soames, he added:

“We aren't the men they were, you know.”

Soames smiled. “Do you really think I shall admit that I'm not their equal”; he seemed to be saying, “or that I've got to give up anything, especially life?”

“We may live to their age, perhaps,” pursued Jolyon, “but self-consciousness is a handicap, you know, and that's the difference between us. We've lost conviction. How and when self-consciousness was born I never can make out. My father had a little, but I don't believe any other of the old Forsytes ever had a scrap. Never to see yourself as others see you, it's a wonderful preservative. The whole history of the last century is in the difference between us. And between us and you,” he added, gazing through a ring of smoke at Val and Holly, uncomfortable under his quizzical regard, “there'll be—another difference. I wonder what.”

Soames took out his watch.

“We must go,” he said, “if we're to catch our train.”

“Uncle Soames never misses a train,” muttered Val, with his mouth full.

“Why should I?” Soames answered simply.

“Oh! I don't know,” grumbled Val, “other people do.”

At the front door he gave Holly's slim brown hand a long and surreptitious squeeze.

“Look out for me tomorrow,” he whispered; “three o'clock. I'll wait for you in the road; it'll save time. We'll have a ripping ride.” He gazed back at her from the lodge gate, and, but for the principles of a man about town, would have waved his hand. He felt in no mood to tolerate his uncle's conversation. But he was not in danger. Soames preserved a perfect muteness, busy with far-away thoughts.

The yellow leaves came down about those two walking the mile and a half which Soames had traversed so often in those long-ago days when he came down to watch with secret pride the building of the house—that house which was to have been the home of him and her from whom he was now going to seek release. He looked back once, up that endless vista of autumn lane between the yellowing hedges. What an age ago! “I don't want to see her,” he had said to Jolyon. Was that true? “I may have to,” he thought; and he shivered, seized by one of those queer shudderings that they say mean footsteps on one's grave. A chilly world! A queer world! And glancing sidelong at his nephew, he thought: “Wish I were his age! I wonder what she's like now!”