They were at supper, and a cheery buzz assailed Fleur’s ears. These girls had nothing, and she had everything, except – the one thing that she chiefly wanted. For a moment she felt ashamed, listening to their talk and laughter. No! She would not change with them – and yet without that one thing she felt as if she could not live. And, while she went about the house, sifting the flowers, ordering for tomorrow, inspecting the bedrooms, laughter, cheery and uncontrolled, floated up and seemed to mock her.
Chapter Five
MORE TALK IN A CAR
JON had too little sense of his own importance to be simultaneously loved with comfort to himself by two pretty and attractive young women. He drove home from Pulborough, where now daily he parked Val’s car, with a sore heart and a mind distraught. He had seen Fleur six times since his return to England, in a sort of painful crescendo. That dance with her had disclosed to him her state of heart, but still he did not suspect her of consciously pursuing him; and no amount of heart-searching seemed to make his own feelings clearer. Ought he to tell Anne about to-day’s meeting? In many small and silent ways she had shown that she was afraid of Fleur. Why add to her fears without real cause? The portrait was not his own doing, and only for the next few days was he likely to be seeing Fleur. After that they would meet, perhaps, two or three times a year. ‘Don’t tell Anne – I beseech you!’ Could he tell her after that? Surely he owed Fleur that much consideration. She had never consented to give him up; she had not fallen in love with Michael, as he with Anne. Still undecided, he reached Wansdon. His mother had once said to him: ‘You must never tell a lie, Jon, your face will always give you away.’ And so, though he did not tell Anne, her eyes following him about noted that he was keeping something from her. Her cold was in the bronchial stage, so that she was still upstairs, and tense from lack of occupation. Jon came up early again after dinner, and began to read to her. He read from The Worst Journey in the World, and on her side she lay with her face pillowed on her arm and watched him over it. The smoke of a wood fire, the scent of balsamic remedies, the drone of his own voice, retailing that epic of a penguin’s egg, drowsed him till the book dropped from his hand.
‘Have a snooze, Jon, you’re tired.’ Jon lay back, but he did not snooze. He thought instead. In this girl, his wife, he knew well that there was what her brother, Francis Wilmot, called ‘sand’. She knew how to be silent when shoes pinched. He had watched her making up her mind that she was in danger; and now it seemed to him that she was biding her time. Anne always knew what she wanted. She had a singleness of purpose not confused like Fleur’s by the currents of modernity, and she was resolute. Youth in her South Carolinian home had been simple and self-reliant; and unlike most American girls, she had not had too good a time. It had been a shock to her, he knew, that she was not his first love and that his first love was still in love with him. She had shown her uneasiness at once, but now, he felt, she had closed her guard. And Jon could not help knowing, too, that she was still deeply in love with him for all that they had been married two years. He had often heard that American girls seldom really knew the men they married; but it seemed to him sometimes that Anne knew him better than he knew himself. If so, what did she know? What was he? He wanted to do something useful with his life; he wanted to be loyal and kind. But was it all just wanting? Was he a fraud? Not what she thought him? It was all confused and heavy in his mind, like the air in the room. No use thinking! Better to snooze, as Anne said – better to snooze! He woke and said:
‘Hallo! Was I snoring?’
‘No. But you were twitching like a dog, Jon.’
Jon got up and went to the window.
‘I was dreaming. It’s a beautiful night. A fine September’s the pick of the year.’
‘Yes; I love the “fall”. Is your mother coming over, soon?’
‘Not until we’re settled in. I believe she thinks we’re better without her.’
‘Your mother would always feel she was de trop before she was.’
‘That’s on the right side, anyway.’
‘Yes, I wonder if I should.’
Jon turned. She was sitting up, staring in front of her, frowning. He went over and kissed her.
‘Careful of your chest, darling!’ and he pulled up the clothes.
She lay back, gazing up at him; and again he wondered what she saw.…
He was met next day by June’s: ‘So Fleur was here yesterday and gave you a lift! I told her what I thought this morning.’
‘What did you think?’ said Jon.
‘That it mustn’t begin again. She’s a spoiled child not to be trusted.’
His eyes moved angrily.
‘You’d better leave Fleur alone.’
‘I always leave people alone,’ said June; ‘but this is my house, and I had to speak my mind.’
‘I’d better stop sitting then.’
‘Now, don’t be silly, Jon. Of course you can’t stop sitting – neither of you. Harold would be frightfully upset.’
‘Damn Harold!’
June took hold of his lapel.
‘That’s not what I meant at all. The pictures are going to be splendid. I only meant that you mustn’t meet here.’
‘Did you tell Fleur that?’
‘Yes.’
Jon laughed, and the sound of the laugh was hard.
‘We’re not children, June.’
‘Have you told Anne?’
‘No.’
‘There, you see!’
‘What?’
His face had become stubborn and angry.
‘You’re very like your father and grandfather, Jon – they couldn’t bear to be told anything.’
‘Can you?’
‘Of course, when it’s necessary.’
‘Then please don’t interfere.’
Pink rushed into June’s cheeks, tears into her eyes; she winked them away, shook herself, and said coldly:
‘I never interfere.’
‘No?’
She went more pink, and suddenly stroked his sleeve. That touched Jon, and he smiled.
He ‘sat’ disturbed all that afternoon, while the Rafaelite painted, and June hovered, sometimes with a frown, and sometimes with yearning in her face. He wondered what he should do if Fleur called for him again. But Fleur did not call, and he went home alone. The next day was Sunday and he did not go up; but on Monday when he came out of ‘The Poplars’, after ‘sitting’ he saw Fleur’s car standing by the kerb.
‘I do want to show you my house to-day. I suppose June spoke to you, but I’m a reformed character, Jon. Get in!’ And Jon got in.
The day was dull, neither lighted nor staged for emotion, and the ‘reformed character’ played her part to perfection. Not a word suggested that they were other than best friends. She talked of America, its language and books. Jon maintained that America was violent in its repressions and in its revolt against repressions.
‘In a word,’ said Fleur, ‘young.’
‘Yes; but so far as I can make out, it’s getting younger every year.’
‘I liked America.’
‘Oh! I liked it all right. I made quite a profit, too, on my orchard when I sold.’
‘I wonder you came back, Jon. The fact is – you’re old-fashioned.’
‘How?’
‘Take sex – I couldn’t discuss sex with you.’
‘Can you with other people?’
‘Oh! with nearly anyone. Don’t frown like that! You’d be awfully out of it, my dear, in London, or New York, for that matter.’
‘I hate fluffy talk about sex,’ said Jon, gruffly. ‘The French are the only people who understand sex. It isn’t to be talked about as they do here and in America; it’s much too real.’
Fleur stole another look.
‘Then let us drop that hot potato. I’m not sure whether I could even discuss art with you.’
‘Did you see that St Gaudens statue at Washington?’
‘Yes; but that’s vieux jeu nowadays.�
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‘Is it?’ growled Jon. ‘What do they want, then?’
‘You know as well as I.’
‘You mean it must be unintelligible?’
‘Put it that way if you like. The point is that art now is just a subject for conversation; and anything that anybody can understand at first sight is not worth talking about and therefore not art’
‘I call that silly.’
‘Perhaps. But more amusing.’
‘If you see through it, how can you be amused?’
‘Another hot potato. Let’s try again! I bet you don’t approve of women’s dress, these days?’
‘Why not? It’s jolly sensible.’
‘La, la! Are we coming together on that?’
‘Naturally, you’d all look better without hats. You can wash your heads easily now, you know.’
‘Oh! don’t cut us off hats, Jon. All our stoicism would go. If we hadn’t to find hats that suited us, life would be much too easy.’
‘But they don’t suit you.’
‘I agree, my dear; but I know the feminine character better than you. One must always give babies something to cut their teeth on.’
‘Fleur, you’re too intelligent to live in London.’
‘My dear boy, the modern young woman doesn’t live anywhere. She floats in an ether of her own.’
‘She touches earth sometimes, I suppose.’
Fleur did not answer for a minute; then, looking at him:
‘Yes; she touches earth sometimes, Jon.’ And in that look she seemed to say again: ‘Oh! what a pity we have to talk like this!’
She showed him the house in such a way that he might get the impression that she considered to some purpose the comfort of others. Even her momentary encounters with the denizens had that quality. Jon went away with a tingling in his palm, and the thought: ‘She likes to make herself out a butterfly, but at heart –!’ The memory of her clear eyes smiling at him, the half-comic quiver of her lips when she said: ‘Good-bye, bless you!’ blurred his vision of Sussex all the way home. And who shall say that she had not so intended?
Holly had come to meet him with a hired car.
‘I’m sorry, Jon, Val’s got the car. He won’t be able to drive you up and down tomorrow as he said he would. He’s had to go up to-day. And if he can get through his business in town, he’ll go on to Newmarket on Wednesday. Something rather beastly’s happened. His name’s been forged on a cheque for a hundred pounds by an old college friend to whom he’d been particularly decent.’
‘Very adequate reasons,’ said Jon. ‘What’s Val going to do?’
‘He doesn’t know yet; but this is the third time he’s played a dirty trick on Val.’
‘Is it quite certain?’
‘The bank described him unmistakably. He seems to think Val will stand anything; but it can’t be allowed to go on.’
‘I should say not.’
‘Yes, dear boy; but what would you do? Prosecute an old college friend? Val has a queer feeling that it’s only a sort of accident that he himself has kept straight.’
Jon started. Was it an accident that one kept straight?
‘Was this fellow in the war?’ he asked.
‘I doubt it. He seems to be an absolute rotter. I saw his face once – bone slack and bone selfish.’
‘Beastly for Val!’ said Jon.
‘He’s going to consult his uncle, Fleur’s father. By the way, have you seen Fleur lately?’
‘Yes. I saw her to-day. She brought me as far as Dorking, and showed me her house there.’
The look on Holly’s face, the reflective shadow between her eyes, were not lost on him.
‘Is there any objection to my seeing her?’ he said, abruptly.
‘Only you can know that, dear boy.’
Jon did not answer, but the moment he saw Anne he told her. She showed him nothing by face or voice, just asked how Fleur was and how he liked the house. That night, after she seemed asleep, he lay awake, gnawed by uncertainty. Was it an accident that one kept straight – was it?
Chapter Six
SOAMES HAS BRAIN-WAVES
THE first question Soames put to his nephew in Green Street, was: ‘How did he get hold of the cheque form? Do you keep your cheque-books lying about?’
‘I’m afraid I do, rather, in the country, Uncle Soames.’
‘Um,’ said Soames, ‘then you deserve all you get. What about your signature?’
‘He wrote from Brighton asking if he could see me.’
‘You should have made your wife sign your answer.’
Val groaned. ‘I didn’t think he’d run to forgery.’
‘They run to anything when they’re as far gone as that. I suppose when you said “No”, he came over from Brighton all the same?’
‘Yes, he did; but I wasn’t in.’
‘Exactly; and he sneaked a form. Well, if you want to stop him, you’d better prosecute. He’ll get three years.’
‘That’d kill him,’ said Val, ‘to judge by his looks.’
Soames shook his head. ‘Improve his health – very likely. Has he ever been in prison?’
‘Not that I know of.’
‘H’m!’
Silence followed this profound remark.
‘I can’t prosecute,’ said Val, suddenly. ‘College pal. There, but for the grace of God and all that, don’t you know; one might have gone to the dogs oneself.’
Soames stared at him.
‘Well,’ he said, ‘I suppose you might. Your father was always in some scrape or other.’
Val frowned. He had suddenly remembered an evening at the Pandemonium, when, in company with another college friend, he had seen his own father, drunk.
‘But somehow,’ he said, ‘I’ve got to see that he doesn’t do it again. If he didn’t look such a “heart” subject, one could give him a hiding.’
Soames shook his head. ‘Personal violence – besides, he’s probably out of England by now.’
‘No; I called at his club on the way here – he’s in town all right.’
‘You didn’t see him?’
‘No. I wanted to see you first.’
Flattered in spite of himself, Soames said sardonically:
‘Perhaps he’s got what they call a better nature?’
‘By Jove, Uncle Soames, I believe that’s a brain-wave!’
Soames shook his head. ‘Not to judge by his face.’
‘I don’t know,’ said Val. ‘After all, he was born a gentleman.’
‘That means nothing nowadays. And, apropos, before I forget it. Do you remember a young fellow called Butterfield, in the Elderson affair – no, you wouldn’t. Well, I’m going to take him out of his publishing firm, and put him under old Gradman, to learn about your mother’s and the other family Trusts. Old Gradmarn’s on his last legs, and this young man can step into his shoes – it’s a permanent job, and better pay than he’s getting now. I can rely on him, and that’s something in these days. I thought I’d tell you.’
‘Another brain-wave, Uncle Soames. But about your first. Could you see Stainford, and follow that up?’
‘Why should I see him?’
‘You carry so much more weight than I do.’
‘H’m! Seems to me I always have to do the unpleasant thing. However, I expect it’s better than your seeing him.’
Val grinned. ‘I shall feel much happier if you do it.’
‘I shan’t,’ said Soames. ‘That bank cashier hasn’t made a mistake, I suppose?’
‘Who could mistake Stainford?’
‘Nobody,’ said Soames. ‘Well, if you won’t prosecute, you’d better leave it to me.’
When Val was gone he remained in thought. Here he was, still keeping the family affairs straight; he wondered what they would do without him some day. That young Butterfield might be a brainwave, but who could tell – the fellow was attached to him, though, in a curious sort of way, with his eyes of a dog! He should put that in hand at once, before old Gradman
dropped off. Must give old Gradman a bit of plate, too, with his name engraved, while he could still appreciate it. Most people only got them when they were dead or dotty. Young Butterfield knew Michael, too, and that would make him interested in Fleur’s affairs. But as to this infernal Stainford? How was he going to set about it? He had better get the fellow here if possible, rather than go to his club. If he’d had the brass to stay in England after committing such a bare-faced forgery, he would have the brass to come here again and see what more he could get. And, smiling sourly, Soames went to the telephone.
‘Mr Stainford in the club? Ask him if he’d be good enough to step over and see Mr Forsyte at Green Street.’
After a look round to see that there were no ornaments within reach, he seated himself in the dining-room and had Smither in.
‘I’m expecting that Mr Stainford, Smither. If I ring, while he’s here, pop out and get a policeman.’
At the expression on Smither’s face he added:
‘I don’t anticipate it, but one never knows.’
‘There’s no danger, I hope, Mr Soames?’
‘Nothing of the sort, Smither; I may want him arrested – that’s all.
‘Do you expect him to take something again, sir?’
Soames smiled, and waved his hand at the lack of ornaments, ‘Very likely he won’t come, but if he does, show him in here.’
When she had gone, he settled down with the clock – a Dutch piece too heavy to take away; it had been ‘picked up’ by James, chimed everything, and had a moon and a lot of stars on its face. He did not feel so ‘bobbish” before this third encounter with that fellow; the chap had scored twice, and so far as he could see, owing to Val’s reluctance to prosecute, was going to score a third time. And yet there was a sort of fascination in dealing with what they called ‘the limit’, and a certain quality about the fellow which raised him almost to the level of romance. It was as if the idolised maxim of his own youth ‘Show no emotion’, and all the fashionableness that, under the ægisof his mother Emily, had clung about Park Lane, were revisiting him in the shape of this languid beggar. And probably the chap would come!
The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 Page 80
