“My God! Who was that?”
Holly too was on her feet.
“Jolly, I expect,” she whispered.
Val clenched fists and resolution.
“All right!” he said, “I don’t care a bit now we’re engaged,” and striding towards the curtains, he drew them aside. There at the fireplace in the hall stood Jolly, with his back elaborately turned. Val went forward. Jolly faced round on him.
“I beg your pardon for hearing,” he said.
With the best intentions in the world, Val could not help admiring him at that moment; his face was clear, his voice quiet, he looked somehow distinguished, as if acting up to principle.
“Well!” Val said abruptly, “it’s nothing to you.”
“Oh!” said Jolly; “you come this way,” and he crossed the hall. Val followed. At the study door he felt a touch on his arm; Holly’s voice said:
“I’m coming too.”
“No,” said Jolly.
“Yes,” said Holly.
Jolly opened the door, and they all three went in. Once in the little room, they stood in a sort of triangle on three corners of the worn Turkey carpet; awkwardly upright, not looking at each other, quite incapable of seeing any humour in the situation.
Val broke the silence.
“Holly and I are engaged.”
Jolly stepped back and leaned against the lintel of the window.
“This is our house,” he said; “I’m not going to insult you in it. But my father’s away. I’m in charge of my sister. You’ve taken advantage of me.”
“I didn’t mean to,” said Val hotly.
“I think you did,” said Jolly. “If you hadn’t meant to, you’d have spoken to me, or waited for my father to come back.”
“There were reasons,” said Val.
“What reasons?”
“About my family—I’ve just told her. I wanted her to know before things happen.”
Jolly suddenly became less distinguished.
“You’re kids,” he said, “and you know you are.”
“I am not a kid,” said Val.
“You are—you’re not twenty.”
“Well, what are you?”
“I am twenty,” said Jolly.
“Only just; anyway, I’m as good a man as you.”
Jolly’s face crimsoned, then clouded. Some struggle was evidently taking place in him; and Val and Holly stared at him, so clearly was that struggle marked; they could even hear him breathing. Then his face cleared up and became oddly resolute.
“We’ll see that,” he said. “I dare you to do what I’m going to do.”
“Dare me?”
Jolly smiled. “Yes,” he said, “dare you; and I know very well you won’t.”
A stab of misgiving shot through Val; this was riding very blind.
“I haven’t forgotten that you’re a fire-eater,” said Jolly slowly, “and I think that’s about all you are; or that you called me a pro-Boer.”
Val heard a gasp above the sound of his own hard breathing, and saw Holly’s face poked a little forward, very pale, with big eyes.
“Yes,” went on Jolly with a sort of smile, “we shall soon see. I’m going to join the Imperial Yeomanry, and I dare you to do the same, Mr. Val Dartie.”
Val’s head jerked on its stem. It was like a blow between the eyes, so utterly unthought of, so extreme and ugly in the midst of his dreaming; and he looked at Holly with eyes grown suddenly, touchingly haggard.
“Sit down!” said Jolly. “Take your time! Think it over well.” And he himself sat down on the arm of his grandfather’s chair.
Val did not sit down; he stood with hands thrust deep into his breeches’ pockets—hands clenched and quivering. The full awfulness of this decision one way or the other knocked at his mind with double knocks as of an angry postman. If he did not take that dare he was disgraced in Holly’s eyes, and in the eyes of that young enemy, her brute of a brother. Yet if he took it, ah! then all would vanish—her face, her eyes, her hair, her kisses just begun!
“Take your time,” said Jolly again; “I don’t want to be unfair.”
And they both looked at Holly. She had recoiled against the bookshelves reaching to the ceiling; her dark head leaned against Gibbon’s Roman Empire, her eyes in a sort of soft grey agony were fixed on Val. And he, who had not much gift of insight, had suddenly a gleam of vision. She would be proud of her brother—that enemy! She would be ashamed of him! His hands came out of his pockets as if lifted by a spring.
“All right!” he said. “Done!”
Holly’s face—oh! it was queer! He saw her flush, start forward. He had done the right thing—her face was shining with wistful admiration. Jolly stood up and made a little bow as who should say: “You’ve passed.”
“Tomorrow, then,” he said, “we’ll go together.”
Recovering from the impetus which had carried him to that decision, Val looked at him maliciously from under his lashes. “All right,” he thought, “one to you. I shall have to join—but I’ll get back on you somehow.” And he said with dignity: “I shall be ready.”
“We’ll meet at the main recruiting office, then,” said Jolly, “at twelve o’clock.” And, opening the window, he went out on to the terrace, conforming to the creed which had made him retire when he surprised them in the hall.
The confusion in the mind of Val thus left alone with her for whom he had paid this sudden price was extreme. The mood of showing off was still, however, uppermost. One must do the wretched thing with an air.
“We shall get plenty of riding and shooting, anyway,” he said; “that’s one comfort.” And it gave him a sort of grim pleasure to hear the sigh which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart.
“Oh! the war’ll soon be over,” he said; “perhaps we shan’t even have to go out. I don’t care, except for you.” He would be out of the way of that beastly divorce. It was an ill-wind! He felt her warm hand slip into his. Jolly thought he had stopped their loving each other, did he? He held her tightly round the waist, looking at her softly through his lashes, smiling to cheer her up, promising to come down and see her soon, feeling somehow six inches taller and much more in command of her than he had ever dared feel before. Many times he kissed her before he mounted and rode back to town. So, swiftly, on the least provocation, does the possessive instinct flourish and grow.
Chapter IX
Dinner at James’s
Dinner parties were not now given at James’s in Park Lane—to every house the moment comes when master or mistress is no longer up to it; no more can nine courses be served to twenty mouths above twenty fine white expanses; nor does the household cat any longer wonder why she is suddenly shut up.
So with something like excitement Emily—who at seventy would still have liked a little feast and fashion now and then—ordered dinner for six instead of two, herself wrote a number of foreign words on cards, and arranged the flowers—mimosa from the Riviera, and white Roman hyacinths not from Rome. There would only be, of course, James and herself, Soames, Winifred, Val, and Imogen—but she liked to pretend a little and dally in imagination with the glory of the past. She so dressed herself that James remarked:
“What are you putting on that thing for? You’ll catch cold.”
But Emily knew that the necks of women are protected by love of shining, unto fourscore years, and she only answered:
“Let me put you on one of those dickies I got you, James; then you’ll only have to change your trousers, and put on your velvet coat, and there you’ll be. Val likes you to look nice.”
“Dicky!” said James. “You’re always wasting your money on something.”
But he suffered the change to be made till his neck also shone, murmuring vaguely:
“He’s an extravagant chap, I’m afraid.”
A
little brighter in the eye, with rather more colour than usual in his cheeks, he took his seat in the drawing room to wait for the sound of the front door bell.
“I’ve made it a proper dinner party,” Emily said comfortably; “I thought it would be good practice for Imogen—she must get used to it now she’s coming out.”
James uttered an indeterminate sound, thinking of Imogen as she used to climb about his knee or pull Christmas crackers with him.
“She’ll be pretty,” he muttered, “I shouldn’t wonder.”
“She is pretty,” said Emily; “she ought to make a good match.”
“There you go,” murmured James; “she’d much better stay at home and look after her mother.” A second Dartie carrying off his pretty granddaughter would finish him! He had never quite forgiven Emily for having been as much taken in by Montague Dartie as he himself had been.
“Where’s Warmson?” he said suddenly. “I should like a glass of Madeira tonight.”
“There’s champagne, James.”
James shook his head. “No body,” he said; “I can’t get any good out of it.”
Emily reached forward on her side of the fire and rang the bell.
“Your master would like a bottle of Madeira opened, Warmson.”
“No, no!” said James, the tips of his ears quivering with vehemence, and his eyes fixed on an object seen by him alone. “Look here, Warmson, you go to the inner cellar, and on the middle shelf of the end bin on the left you’ll see seven bottles; take the one in the centre, and don’t shake it. It’s the last of the Madeira I had from Mr. Jolyon when we came in here—never been moved; it ought to be in prime condition still; but I don’t know, I can’t tell.”
“Very good, sir,” responded the withdrawing Warmson.
“I was keeping it for our golden wedding,” said James suddenly, “but I shan’t live three years at my age.”
“Nonsense, James,” said Emily, “don’t talk like that.”
“I ought to have got it up myself,” murmured James, “he’ll shake it as likely as not.” And he sank into silent recollection of long moments among the open gas-jets, the cobwebs and the good smell of wine-soaked corks, which had been appetizer to so many feasts. In the wine from that cellar was written the history of the forty odd years since he had come to the Park Lane house with his young bride, and of the many generations of friends and acquaintances who had passed into the unknown; its depleted bins preserved the record of family festivity—all the marriages, births, deaths of his kith and kin. And when he was gone there it would be, and he didn’t know what would become of it. It’d be drunk or spoiled, he shouldn’t wonder!
From that deep reverie the entrance of his son dragged him, followed very soon by that of Winifred and her two eldest.
They went down arm-in-arm—James with Imogen, the debutante, because his pretty grandchild cheered him; Soames with Winifred; Emily with Val, whose eyes lighting on the oysters brightened. This was to be a proper full blowout with fizz and port! And he felt in need of it, after what he had done that day, as yet undivulged. After the first glass or two it became pleasant to have this bombshell up his sleeve, this piece of sensational patriotism, or example, rather, of personal daring, to display—for his pleasure in what he had done for his queen and country was so far entirely personal. He was now a “blood,” indissolubly connected with guns and horses; he had a right to swagger—not, of course, that he was going to. He should just announce it quietly, when there was a pause. And, glancing down the menu, he determined on Bombe aux fraises as the proper moment; there would be a certain solemnity while they were eating that. Once or twice before they reached that rosy summit of the dinner he was attacked by remembrance that his grandfather was never told anything! Still, the old boy was drinking Madeira, and looking jolly fit! Besides, he ought to be pleased at this set-off to the disgrace of the divorce. The sight of his uncle opposite, too, was a sharp incentive. He was so far from being a sportsman that it would be worth a lot to see his face. Besides, better to tell his mother in this way than privately, which might upset them both! He was sorry for her, but after all one couldn’t be expected to feel much for others when one had to part from Holly.
His grandfather’s voice travelled to him thinly. “Val, try a little of the Madeira with your ice. You won’t get that up at college.”
Val watched the slow liquid filling his glass, the essential oil of the old wine glazing the surface; inhaled its aroma, and thought: “Now for it!” It was a rich moment. He sipped, and a gentle glow spread in his veins, already heated. With a rapid look round, he said, “I joined the Imperial Yeomanry today, Granny,” and emptied his glass as though drinking the health of his own act.
“What!” It was his mother’s desolate little word.
“Young Jolly Forsyte and I went down there together.”
“You didn’t sign?” from Uncle Soames.
“Rather! We go into camp on Monday.”
“I say!” cried Imogen.
All looked at James. He was leaning forward with his hand behind his ear.
“What’s that?” he said. “What’s he saying? I can’t hear.”
Emily reached forward to pat Val’s hand.
“It’s only that Val has joined the Yeomanry, James; it’s very nice for him. He’ll look his best in uniform.”
“Joined the—rubbish!” came from James, tremulously loud. “You can’t see two yards before your nose. He—he’ll have to go out there. Why! he’ll be fighting before he knows where he is.”
Val saw Imogen’s eyes admiring him, and his mother still and fashionable with her handkerchief before her lips.
Suddenly his uncle spoke.
“You’re under age.”
“I thought of that,” smiled Val; “I gave my age as twenty-one.”
He heard his grandmother’s admiring, “Well, Val, that was plucky of you;” was conscious of Warmson deferentially filling his champagne glass; and of his grandfather’s voice moaning: “I don’t know what’ll become of you if you go on like this.”
Imogen was patting his shoulder, his uncle looking at him sidelong; only his mother sat unmoving, till, affected by her stillness, Val said:
“It’s all right, you know; we shall soon have them on the run. I only hope I shall come in for something.”
He felt elated, sorry, tremendously important all at once. This would show Uncle Soames, and all the Forsytes, how to be sportsmen. He had certainly done something heroic and exceptional in giving his age as twenty-one.
Emily’s voice brought him back to earth.
“You mustn’t have a second glass, James. Warmson!”
“Won’t they be astonished at Timothy’s!” burst out Imogen. “I’d give anything to see their faces. Do you have a sword, Val, or only a popgun?”
“What made you?”
His uncle’s voice produced a slight chill in the pit of Val’s stomach. Made him? How answer that? He was grateful for his grandmother’s comfortable:
“Well, I think it’s very plucky of Val. I’m sure he’ll make a splendid soldier; he’s just the figure for it. We shall all be proud of him.”
“What had young Jolly Forsyte to do with it? Why did you go together?” pursued Soames, uncannily relentless. “I thought you weren’t friendly with him?”
“I’m not,” mumbled Val, “but I wasn’t going to be beaten by him.” He saw his uncle look at him quite differently, as if approving. His grandfather was nodding too, his grandmother tossing her head. They all approved of his not being beaten by that cousin of his. There must be a reason! Val was dimly conscious of some disturbing point outside his range of vision; as it might be, the unlocated centre of a cyclone. And, staring at his uncle’s face, he had a quite unaccountable vision of a woman with dark eyes, gold hair, and a white neck, who smelt nice, and had pretty silken clothes which he had liked
feeling when he was quite small. By Jove, yes! Aunt Irene! She used to kiss him, and he had bitten her arm once, playfully, because he liked it—so soft. His grandfather was speaking:
“What’s his father doing?”
“He’s away in Paris,” Val said, staring at the very queer expression on his uncle’s face, like—like that of a snarling dog.
“Artists!” said James. The word coming from the very bottom of his soul, broke up the dinner.
Opposite his mother in the cab going home, Val tasted the after-fruits of heroism, like medlars overripe.
She only said, indeed, that he must go to his tailor’s at once and have his uniform properly made, and not just put up with what they gave him. But he could feel that she was very much upset. It was on his lips to console her with the spoken thought that he would be out of the way of that beastly divorce, but the presence of Imogen, and the knowledge that his mother would not be out of the way, restrained him. He felt aggrieved that she did not seem more proud of him. When Imogen had gone to bed, he risked the emotional.
“I’m awfully sorry to have to leave you, Mother.”
“Well, I must make the best of it. We must try and get you a commission as soon as we can; then you won’t have to rough it so. Do you know any drill, Val?”
“Not a scrap.”
“I hope they won’t worry you much. I must take you about to get the things tomorrow. Good night; kiss me.”
With that kiss, soft and hot, between his eyes, and those words, “I hope they won’t worry you much,” in his ears, he sat down to a cigarette, before a dying fire. The heat was out of him—the glow of cutting a dash. It was all a damned heartaching bore. “I’ll be even with that chap Jolly,” he thought, trailing up the stairs, past the room where his mother was biting her pillow to smother a sense of desolation which was trying to make her sob.
And soon only one of the diners at James’s was awake—Soames, in his bedroom above his father’s.
The Forsyte Saga Page 58
