“Suppose I tell him,” she thought; “wouldn’t it really be safer?” This hideous luck had no right to spoil their love; he must see that! They could not let it! People always accepted an accomplished fact in time! From that piece of philosophy—profound enough at her age—she passed to another consideration less philosophic. If she persuaded Jon to a quick and secret marriage, and he found out afterward that she had known the truth. What then? Jon hated subterfuge. Again, then, would it not be better to tell him? But the memory of his mother’s face kept intruding on that impulse. Fleur was afraid. His mother had power over him; more power perhaps than she herself. Who could tell? It was too great a risk. Deep-sunk in these instinctive calculations she was carried on past Green Street as far as the Ritz Hotel. She got down there, and walked back on the Green Park side. The storm had washed every tree; they still dripped. Heavy drops fell on to her frills, and to avoid them she crossed over under the eyes of the Iseeum Club. Chancing to look up she saw Monsieur Profond with a tall stout man in the bay window. Turning into Green Street she heard her name called, and saw “that prowler” coming up. He took off his hat—a glossy “bowler” such as she particularly detested.
“Good evenin’! Miss Forsyde. Isn’t there a small thing I can do for you?”
“Yes, pass by on the other side.”
“I say! Why do you dislike me?”
“Do I?”
“It looks like it.”
“Well, then, because you make me feel life isn’t worth living.”
Monsieur Profond smiled.
“Look here, Miss Forsyde, don’t worry. It’ll be all right. Nothing lasts.”
“Things do last,” cried Fleur; “with me anyhow—especially likes and dislikes.”
“Well, that makes me a bit un’appy.”
“I should have thought nothing could ever make you happy or unhappy.”
“I don’t like to annoy other people. I’m goin’ on my yacht.”
Fleur looked at him, startled.
“Where?”
“Small voyage to the South Seas or somewhere,” said Monsieur Profond.
Fleur suffered relief and a sense of insult. Clearly he meant to convey that he was breaking with her mother. How dared he have anything to break, and yet how dared he break it?
“Good night, Miss Forsyde! Remember me to Mrs. Dartie. I’m not so bad really. Good night!” Fleur left him standing there with his hat raised. Stealing a look round, she saw him stroll—immaculate and heavy—back toward his club.
“He can’t even love with conviction,” she thought. “What will Mother do?”
Her dreams that night were endless and uneasy; she rose heavy and unrested, and went at once to the study of Whitaker’s Almanac. A Forsyte is instinctively aware that facts are the real crux of any situation. She might conquer Jon’s prejudice, but without exact machinery to complete their desperate resolve, nothing would happen. From the invaluable tome she learned that they must each be twenty-one; or some one’s consent would be necessary, which of course was unobtainable; then she became lost in directions concerning licenses, certificates, notices, districts, coming finally to the word “perjury.” But that was nonsense! Who would really mind their giving wrong ages in order to be married for love! She ate hardly any breakfast, and went back to Whitaker. The more she studied the less sure she became; till, idly turning the pages, she came to Scotland. People could be married there without any of this nonsense. She had only to go and stay there twenty-one days, then Jon could come, and in front of two people they could declare themselves married. And what was more—they would be! It was far the best way; and at once she ran over her schoolfellows. There was Mary Lambe who lived in Edinburgh and was “quite a sport!”
She had a brother too. She could stay with Mary Lambe, who with her brother would serve for witnesses. She well knew that some girls would think all this unnecessary, and that all she and Jon need do was to go away together for a weekend and then say to their people: “We are married by nature, we must now be married by law.” But Fleur was Forsyte enough to feel such a proceeding dubious, and to dread her father’s face when he heard of it. Besides, she did not believe that Jon would do it; he had an opinion of her such as she could not bear to diminish. No! Mary Lambe was preferable, and it was just the time of year to go to Scotland. More at ease now she packed, avoided her aunt, and took a bus to Chiswick. She was too early, and went on to Kew Gardens. She found no peace among its flower beds, labelled trees, and broad green spaces, and having lunched off anchovy paste sandwiches and coffee, returned to Chiswick and rang June’s bell. The Austrian admitted her to the little meal room. Now that she knew what she and Jon were up against, her longing for him had increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or dangerous paint such as they had tried to take from her as a child. If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and all, she felt like dying of privation. By hook or crook she must and would get him! A round dim mirror of very old glass hung over the pink brick hearth. She stood looking at herself reflected in it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept passing through her nerves. Then she heard the bell ring, and, stealing to the window, saw him standing on the doorstep smoothing his hair and lips, as if he too were trying to subdue the fluttering of his nerves.
She was sitting on one of the two rush-seated chairs, with her back to the door, when he came in, and she said at once—
“Sit down, Jon, I want to talk seriously.”
Jon sat on the table by her side, and without looking at him she went on:
“If you don’t want to lose me, we must get married.”
Jon gasped.
“Why? Is there anything new?”
“No, but I felt it at Robin Hill, and among my people.”
“But—” stammered Jon, “at Robin Hill—it was all smooth—and they’ve said nothing to me.”
“But they mean to stop us. Your mother’s face was enough. And my father’s.”
“Have you seen him since?”
Fleur nodded. What mattered a few supplementary lies?
“But,” said Jon eagerly, “I can’t see how they can feel like that after all these years.”
Fleur looked up at him.
“Perhaps you don’t love me enough.” “Not love you enough! Why—!”
“Then make sure of me.”
“Without telling them?”
“Not till after.”
Jon was silent. How much older he looked than on that day, barely two months ago, when she first saw him—quite two years older!
“It would hurt Mother awfully,” he said.
Fleur drew her hand away.
“You’ve got to choose.”
Jon slid off the table on to his knees.
“But why not tell them? They can’t really stop us, Fleur!”
“They can! I tell you, they can.”
“How?”
“We’re utterly dependent—by putting money pressure, and all sorts of other pressure. I’m not patient, Jon.”
“But it’s deceiving them.”
Fleur got up.
“You can’t really love me, or you wouldn’t hesitate. ‘He either fears his fate too much!’”
Lifting his hands to her waist, Jon forced her to sit down again. She hurried on:
“I’ve planned it all out. We’ve only to go to Scotland. When we’re married they’ll soon come round. People always come round to facts. Don’t you see, Jon?”
“But to hurt them so awfully!”
So he would rather hurt her than those people of his! “All right, then; let me go!”
Jon got up and put his back against the door.
“I expect you’re right,” he said slowly; “but I want to think it over.”
She could see that he was seething with feelings he wanted to expres
s; but she did not mean to help him. She hated herself at this moment and almost hated him. Why had she to do all the work to secure their love? It wasn’t fair. And then she saw his eyes, adoring and distressed.
“Don’t look like that! I only don’t want to lose you, Jon.”
“You can’t lose me so long as you want me.”
“Oh, yes, I can.”
Jon put his hands on her shoulders.
“Fleur, do you know anything you haven’t told me?”
It was the point-blank question she had dreaded. She looked straight at him, and answered: “No.” She had burnt her boats; but what did it matter, if she got him? He would forgive her. And throwing her arms round his neck, she kissed him on the lips. She was winning! She felt it in the beating of his heart against her, in the closing of his eyes. “I want to make sure! I want to make sure!” she whispered. “Promise!”
Jon did not answer. His face had the stillness of extreme trouble. At last he said:
“It’s like hitting them. I must think a little, Fleur. I really must.”
Fleur slipped out of his arms.
“Oh! Very well!” And suddenly she burst into tears of disappointment, shame, and overstrain. Followed five minutes of acute misery. Jon’s remorse and tenderness knew no bounds; but he did not promise. Despite her will to cry, “Very well, then, if you don’t love me enough—goodbye!” she dared not. From birth accustomed to her own way, this check from one so young, so tender, so devoted, baffled and surprised her. She wanted to push him away from her, to try what anger and coldness would do, and again she dared not. The knowledge that she was scheming to rush him blindfold into the irrevocable weakened everything—weakened the sincerity of pique, and the sincerity of passion; even her kisses had not the lure she wished for them. That stormy little meeting ended inconclusively.
“Will you some tea, gnädiges Fräulein?”
Pushing Jon from her, she cried out:
“No—no, thank you! I’m just going.”
And before he could prevent her she was gone.
She went stealthily, mopping her gushed, stained cheeks, frightened, angry, very miserable. She had stirred Jon up so fearfully, yet nothing definite was promised or arranged! But the more uncertain and hazardous the future, the more “the will to have” worked its tentacles into the flesh of her heart—like some burrowing tick!
No one was at Green Street. Winifred had gone with Imogen to see a play which some said was allegorical, and others “very exciting, don’t you know.” It was because of what others said that Winifred and Imogen had gone. Fleur went on to Paddington. Through the carriage the air from the brick kilns of West Drayton and the late hayfields fanned her still gushed cheeks. Flowers had seemed to be had for the picking; now they were all thorned and prickled. But the golden flower within the crown of spikes seemed to her tenacious spirit all the fairer and more desirable.
Chapter IX
The Fat in the Fire
On reaching home Fleur found an atmosphere so peculiar that it penetrated even the perplexed aura of her own private life. Her mother was inaccessibly entrenched in a brown study; her father contemplating fate in the vinery. Neither of them had a word to throw to a dog. “Is it because of me?” thought Fleur. “Or because of Profond?” To her mother she said:
“What’s the matter with Father?”
Her mother answered with a shrug of her shoulders.
To her father:
“What’s the matter with Mother?”
Her father answered:
“Matter? What should be the matter?” and gave her a sharp look.
“By the way,” murmured Fleur, “Monsieur Profond is going a ‘small’ voyage on his yacht, to the South Seas.”
Soames examined a branch on which no grapes were growing.
“This vine’s a failure,” he said. “I’ve had young Mont here. He asked me something about you.”
“Oh! How do you like him, Father?”
“He—he’s a product—like all these young people.”
“What were you at his age, dear?”
Soames smiled grimly.
“We went to work, and didn’t play about—flying and motoring, and making love.”
“Didn’t you ever make love?”
She avoided looking at him while she said that, but she saw him well enough. His pale face had reddened, his eyebrows, where darkness was still mingled with the grey, had come close together.
“I had no time or inclination to philander.”
“Perhaps you had a grand passion.”
Soames looked at her intently.
“Yes—if you want to know—and much good it did me.” He moved away, along by the hot water pipes. Fleur tiptoed silently after him.
“Tell me about it, Father!”
Soames became very still.
“What should you want to know about such things, at your age?”
“Is she alive?”
He nodded.
“And married?”
“Yes.”
“It’s Jon Forsyte’s mother, isn’t it? And she was your wife first.”
It was said in a flash of intuition. Surely his opposition came from his anxiety that she should not know of that old wound to his pride. But she was startled. To see someone so old and calm wince as if struck, to hear so sharp a note of pain in his voice!
“Who told you that? If your aunt! I can’t bear the affair talked of.”
“But, darling,” said Fleur, softly, “it’s so long ago.”
“Long ago or not, I. . . .”
Fleur stood stroking his arm.
“I’ve tried to forget,” he said suddenly; “I don’t wish to be reminded.” And then, as if venting some long and secret irritation, he added: “In these days people don’t understand. Grand passion, indeed! No one knows what it is.”
“I do,” said Fleur, almost in a whisper.
Soames, who had turned his back on her, spun round.
“What are you talking of—a child like you!”
“Perhaps I’ve inherited it, Father.”
“What?”
“For her son, you see.”
He was pale as a sheet, and she knew that she was as bad. They stood staring at each other in the steamy heat, redolent of the mushy scent of earth, of potted geranium, and of vines coming along fast.
“This is crazy,” said Soames at last, between dry lips.
Scarcely moving her own, she murmured:
“Don’t be angry, Father. I can’t help it.”
But she could see he wasn’t angry; only scared, deeply scared.
“I thought that foolishness,” he stammered, “was all forgotten.”
“Oh, no! It’s ten times what it was.”
Soames kicked at the hot water pipe. The hapless movement touched her, who had no fear of her father—none.
“Dearest!” she said. “What must be, must, you know.”
“Must!” repeated Soames. “You don’t know what you’re talking of. Has that boy been told?”
The blood rushed into her cheeks.
“Not yet.”
He had turned from her again, and, with one shoulder a little raised, stood staring fixedly at a joint in the pipes.
“It’s most distasteful to me,” he said suddenly; “nothing could be more so. Son of that fellow! It’s—it’s—perverse!”
She had noted, almost unconsciously, that he did not say “son of that woman,” and again her intuition began working.
Did the ghost of that grand passion linger in some corner of his heart?
She slipped her hand under his arm.
“Jon’s father is quite ill and old; I saw him.”
“You—?”
“Yes, I went there with Jon; I saw them both.”
&nbs
p; “Well, and what did they say to you?”
“Nothing. They were very polite.”
“They would be.” He resumed his contemplation of the pipe joint, and then said suddenly:
“I must think this over—I’ll speak to you again tonight.”
She knew this was final for the moment, and stole away, leaving him still looking at the pipe joint. She wandered into the fruit garden, among the raspberry and currant bushes, without impetus to pick and eat. Two months ago—she was lighthearted! Even two days ago—lighthearted, before Prosper Profond told her. Now she felt tangled in a web—of passions, vested rights, oppressions and revolts, the ties of love and hate. At this dark moment of discouragement there seemed, even to her hold-fast nature, no way out. How deal with it—how sway and bend things to her will, and get her heart’s desire? And, suddenly, round the corner of the high box hedge, she came plump on her mother, walking swiftly, with an open letter in her hand. Her bosom was heaving, her eyes dilated, her cheeks flushed. Instantly Fleur thought: “The yacht! Poor Mother!”
Annette gave her a wide startled look, and said:
“J’ai la migraine.”
“I’m awfully sorry, Mother.”
“Oh, yes! you and your father—sorry!”
“But, Mother—I am. I know what it feels like.”
Annette’s startled eyes grew wide, till the whites showed above them.
“Poor innocent!” she said.
Her mother—so self-possessed, and commonsensical—to look and speak like this! It was all frightening! Her father, her mother, herself! And only two months back they had seemed to have everything they wanted in this world.
Annette crumpled the letter in her hand. Fleur knew that she must ignore the sight.
“Can’t I do anything for your head, Mother?”
Annette shook that head and walked on, swaying her hips.
“It’s cruel,” thought Fleur, “and I was glad! That man! What do men come prowling for, disturbing everything! I suppose he’s tired of her. What business has he to be tired of my mother? What business!” And at that thought, so natural and so peculiar, she uttered a little choked laugh.
The Forsyte Saga Page 89
