The lock-keeper’s daughter came out to take some garments off a line. Women in the country seemed to do nothing but hang clothes on lines and take them off again! Soames watched her, neat-handed, neat-ankled, in neat light-blue print, with a face like a Botticelli—lots of faces like that in England! She would have a young man, or perhaps two—and they would walk in that wood, and sit in damp places and all the rest of it, and imagine themselves happy, he shouldn’t wonder; or she would get up behind him on one of those cycle things and go tearing about the country with her dress up to her knees. And her name would be Gladys or Doris, or what not! She saw him, and smiled. She had a full mouth that looked pretty when it smiled. Soames raised his hat slightly.
“Nice evening!” he said.
“Yes, sir.”
Very respectful!
“River’s still high.”
“Yes, sir.”
Rather a pretty girl! Suppose he had been a lock-keeper, and Fleur had been a lock-keeper’s daughter—hanging clothes on a line, and saying “Yes, sir!” Well, he would as soon be a lock-keeper as anything else in a humble walk of life—watching water go up and down, and living in that pretty cottage, with nothing to worry about, except—except his daughter! And he checked an impulse to say to the girl: “Are you a good daughter?” Was there such a thing nowadays—a daughter that thought of you first, and herself after?
“These cuckoos!” he said, heavily.
“Yes, sir.”
She was taking a somewhat suggestive garment off the line now, and Soames lowered his eyes, he did not want to embarrass the girl—not that he saw any signs. Probably you couldn’t embarrass a girl nowadays! And, rising, he closed the handle of his shooting-stick.
“Well, it’ll keep fine, I shouldn’t wonder.”
“Yes, sir.”
“Good evening.”
“Good evening, sir.”
Followed by the dog, he moved along towards home. Butter wouldn’t melt in her mouth; but how would she talk to her young man? Humiliating to be old! On an evening like this, one should be young again, and walk in a wood with a girl like that; and all that had been faun-like in his nature pricked ears for a moment, licked lips, and with a shrug and a slight sense of shame, died down.
It had always been characteristic of Soames, who had his full share of the faun, to keep the fact carefully hidden. Like all his family, except, perhaps, his cousin George and his uncle Swithin, he was secretive in matters of sex; no Forsyte talked sex, or liked to hear others talk it; and when they felt its call, they gave no outward sign. Not the Puritan spirit, but a certain refinement in them forbade the subject, and where they got it from they did not know!
After his lonely dinner he lit his cigar and strolled out again. It was really warm for May, and still light enough for him to see his cows in the meadow beyond the river. They would soon be sheltering for the night, under that hawthorn hedge. And here came the swans, with their grey brood in tow; handsome birds, going to bed on the island!
The river was whitening; the dusk seemed held in the trees, waiting to spread and fly up into a sky just drained of sunset. Very peaceful, and a little eerie—the hour between! Those starlings made a racket—disagreeable beggars; there could be no real self-respect with such short tails! The swallows went by, taking ‘night-caps’ of gnats and early moths; and the poplars stood so still—just as if listening—that Soames put up his hand to feel for breeze. Not a breath! And then, all at once—no swallows flying, no starlings; a chalky hue over river, over sky! The lights sprang up in the house. A night-flying beetle passed him, booming. The dew was falling—he felt it; must go in. And, as he turned, quickly, dusk softened the trees, the sky, the river. And Soames thought: ‘Hope to goodness there’ll be no mysteries when she comes down tomorrow. I don’t want to be worried!’ Just she and the little chap; it might be so pleasant, if that old love trouble with its gnarled roots in the past and its bitter fruits in the future were not present, to cast a gloom…
He slept well, and next morning could settle to nothing but the arrangement of things already arranged. Several times he stopped dead in the middle of this task to listen for the car and remind himself that he must not fuss, or go asking things. No doubt she had seen young Jon again yesterday, but he must not ask.
He went up to his picture gallery and unhooked from the wall a little Watteau, which he had once heard her admire. He took it downstairs and stood it on an easel in her bedroom—a young man in full plum-coloured skirts and lace ruffles, playing a tambourine to a young lady in blue, with a bare bosom, behind a pet lamb. Charming thing! She could take it away when she went, and hang it with the Fragonards and Chardin in her drawing-room. Standing by the double-poster, he bent down and sniffed at the bed linen. Not quite as fragrant as it ought to be. That woman, Mrs. Edger—his housekeeper—had forgotten the potpourri bags; he knew there would be something! And, going to a store closet, he took four little bags with tiny mauve ribbons from a shelf, and put them into the bed. He wandered thence into the bathroom. He didn’t know whether she would like those salts—they were Annette’s new speciality, and smelt too strong for HIS taste. Otherwise it seemed all right; the soap was “Roger and Gallet,” and the waste worked. All these new gadgets—half of them didn’t; there was nothing like the old-fashioned thing that pulled up with a chain! Great change in washing during his lifetime. He couldn’t quite remember pre-bathroom days; but he could well recall how his father used to say regularly: “They never gave me a bath when I was a boy. First house of my own, I had one put in-people used to come and stare at it—in 1840. They tell me the doctors are against washing now; but I don’t know.” James had been dead a quarter of a century, and the doctors had turned their coats several times since. Fact was, people enjoyed baths; so it didn’t really matter what view the doctors took! Kit enjoyed them—some children didn’t. And, leaving the bathroom, Soames stood in front of the flowers the gardener had brought in-among them, three special early roses. Roses were the fellow’s forte, or rather his weak point—he cared for nothing else; that was the worst of people nowadays, they specialized so that there was no relativity between things, in spite of its being the fashionable philosophy, or so they told him. He took up a rose and sniffed at it deeply. So many different kinds now—he had lost track! In his young days one could tell them—La France, Marechal Niel, and Gloire de Dijon—nothing else to speak of; you never heard of THEM now. And at this reminder of the mutability of flowers and the ingenuity of human beings, Soames felt slightly exhausted. There was no end to things!
She was late, too! That fellow Riggs—for he had left the car to bring her down, and had come by train himself—would have got punctured, of course; he was always getting punctured if there was any reason why he shouldn’t. And for the next half-hour Soames fidgeted about so that he was deep in nothing in his picture gallery at the very top of the house and did not hear the car arrive. Fleur’s voice roused him from thoughts of her.
“Hallo!” he said, peering down the stairs, “where have YOU sprung from? I expected you an hour ago.”
“Yes, dear, we had to get some things on the way. How lovely it all looks! Kit’s in the garden.”
“Ah!” said Soames, descending. “Did you get a rest yester—” and he pulled up in front of her.
She bent her face forward for a kiss, and her eyes looked beyond him. Soames put his lips on the edge of her cheekbone. She was away, somewhere! And, as his lips mumbled her soft skin slightly, he thought: ‘She’s not thinking of me—why should she? She’s young.’
PART II
Chapter I.
SON OF SLEEPING DOVE
Whether or not the character of Englishmen in general is based on chalk, it is undeniably present in the systems of our jockeys and trainers. Living for the most part on Downs, drinking a good deal of water, and concerned with the joints of horses, they are almost professionally calcareous, and at times distinguished by bony noses and chins.
The chin of Greenwater
, the retired jockey in charge of Val Dartie’s stable, projected, as if in years of race-riding it had been bent on prolonging the efforts of his mounts and catching the judge’s eye. His thin, commanding nose dominated a mask of brown skin and bone, his narrow brown eyes glowed slightly, his dark hair was smooth and brushed back; he was five feet seven inches in height, and long seasons, during which he had been afraid to eat, had laid a look of austerity over such natural liveliness, as may be observed in-say—a water-wagtail. A married man with two children, he was endeared to his family by the taciturnity of one who had been intimate with horses for thirty-five years. In his leisure hours he played the piccolo. No one in England was more reliable.
Val, who had picked him up on his retirement from the pig-skin in 1921, thought him an even better judge of men than of horses, incapable of trusting them further than he could see them, and that not very far. Just now it was particularly necessary to trust no one, for there was in the stable a two-year-old colt, Rondavel, by Kaffir out of Sleeping Dove, of whom so much was expected, that nothing whatever had been said about him. On the Monday of Ascot week Val was the more surprised, then, to hear his trainer remark:
“Mr. Dartie, there was a son of a gun watching the gallop this morning.”
“The deuce there was!”
“Someone’s been talking. When they come watching a little stable like this—something’s up. If you take my advice, you’ll send the colt to Ascot and let him run his chance on Thursday—won’t do him any harm to smell a racecourse. We can ease him after, and bring him again for Goodwood.”
Aware of his trainer’s conviction that the English race-horse, no less than the English man, liked a light preparation nowadays, Val answered:
“Afraid of overdoing him?”
“Well, he’s fit now, and that’s a fact. I had Sinnet shake him up this morning, and he just left ’em all standing. Fit to run for his life, he is; wish you’d been there.”
“Oho!” said Val, unlatching the door of the box. “Well, my beauty?”
The Sleeping Dove colt turned his head, regarding his owner with a certain lustrous philosophy. A dark grey, with one white heel and a star, he stood glistening from his morning toilet. A good one! The straight hocks and ranginess of St. Simon crosses in his background! Scope, and a rare shoulder for coming down a hill. Not exactly what you’d call a ‘picture’—his lines didn’t quite ‘flow,’ but great character. Intelligent as a dog, and game as an otter! Val looked back at his trainer’s intent face.
“All right, Greenwater. I’ll tell the missus—we’ll go in force. Who can you get to ride at such short notice?”
“Young Lamb.”
“Ah!” said Val, with a grin; “you’ve got it all cut and dried, I see.”
Only on his way back to the house did he recollect a possible ‘hole in the ballot’ of secrecy… Three days after the General Strike collapsed, before Holly and young Jon and his wife had returned, he had been smoking a second pipe over his accounts, when the maid had announced:
“A gentleman to see you, sir.”
“What name?”
“Stainford, sir.”
Checking the impulse to say, “And you left him in the hall!” Val passed hurriedly into that part of the house.
His old college pal was contemplating a piece of plate over the stone hearth.
“Hallo!” said Val.
His unemotional visitor turned round.
Less threadbare than in Green Street, as if something had restored his credit, his face had the same crow’s-footed, contemptuous calm.
“Ah, Dartie!” he said. “Joe Lightson, the bookie, told me you had a stable down here. I thought I’d look you up on my way to Brighton. How has your Sleeping Dove yearling turned out?”
“So-so,” said Val.
“When are you going to run him? I thought, perhaps, you’d like me to work your commission. I could do it much better than the professionals.”
Really, the fellow’s impudence was sublime!
“Thanks very much; but I hardly bet at all.”
“Is that possible? I say, Dartie, I didn’t mean to bother you again, but if you could let me have a ‘pony,’ it would be a great boon.”
“Sorry, but I don’t keep ‘ponies’ about me down here.”
“A cheque—”
Cheque—not if he knew it!
“No,” said Val firmly. “Have a drink?”
“Thanks very much!”
Pouring out the drink at the sideboard in the dining-room, with one eye on the stilly figure of his guest, Val took a resolution.
“Look here, Stainford—” he began, then his heart failed him. “How did you get here?”
“By car, from Horsham. And that reminds me. I haven’t a sou with me to pay for it.”
Val winced. There was something ineffably wretched about the whole thing.
“Well,” he said, “here’s a fiver, if that’s any use to you; but really I’m not game for any more.” And, with a sudden outburst, he added: “I’ve never forgotten, you know, that I once lent you all I had at Oxford when I was deuced hard pressed myself, and you never paid it back, though you came into shekels that very term.”
The well-shaped hand closed on the fiver; a bitter smile opened the thin lips.
“Oxford! Another life! Well, good-bye, Dartie—I’ll get on; and thanks! Hope you’ll have a good season.”
He did not hold out his hand. Val watched his back, languid and slim, till it was out of sight…
Yes! That memory explained it! Stainford must have picked up some gossip in the village—not likely that they would let a ‘Sleeping Dove’ lie! It didn’t much matter; since Holly would hardly let him bet at all. But Greenwater must look sharp after the colt. Plenty of straight men racing; but a lot of blackguards hanging about the sport. Queer how horses collected blackguards—most beautiful creatures God ever made! But beauty was like that—look at the blackguards hanging round pretty women! Well, he must let Holly know. They could stay, as usual, at old Warmson’s Inn, on the river; from there it was only a fifteen-mile drive to the course…
The ‘Pouter Pigeon’ stood back a little from the river Thames, on the Berkshire side, above an old-fashioned garden of roses, stocks, gillyflowers, poppies, phlox drummondi, and sweet-williams. In the warm June weather the scents from that garden and from sweetbriar round the windows drifted into an old brick house painted cream-colour. Late Victorian service in Park Lane under James Forsyte, confirmed by a later marriage with Emily’s maid Fifine, had induced in Warmson, indeed, such complete knowledge of what was what, that no river inn had greater attractions for those whose taste had survived modernity. Spotless linen, double beds warmed with copper pans, even in summer; cider, homemade from a large orchard, and matured in rum casks—the inn was a veritable feather-bed to all the senses. Prints of “Mariage a la Mode,” “Rake’s Progress,” “The Nightshirt Steeplechase,” “Run with the Quorn,” and large functional groupings of Victorian celebrities with their names attached to blank faces on a key chart, decorated the walls. Its sanitation and its port were excellent. Pot-pourri lay in every bedroom, old pewter round the coffee room, clean napkins at every meal. And a poor welcome was assured to earwigs, spiders, and the wrong sort of guest… Warmson, one of those self-contained men who spread when they take inns, pervaded the house, with a red face set in small, grey whiskers, like a sun of just sufficient warmth.
To young Anne Forsyte all was “just too lovely.” Never in her short life, confined to a large country, had she come across such defiant cosiness—the lush peace of the river, the songs of birds, the scents of flowers, the rustic arbour, the drifting lazy sky, now blue, now white, the friendly fat spaniel, and the feeling that tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow would for ever be the same as yesterday.
“It’s a poem, Jon.”
“Slightly comic. When everything’s slightly comic, you don’t tire.”
“I’d certainly never tire of this.”
&nbs
p; “We don’t grow tragedy in England, Anne.”
“Why?”
“Well, tragedy’s extreme; and we don’t like extremes. Tragedy’s dry and England’s damp.”
She was leaning her elbows on the wall at the bottom of the garden, and, turning her chin a little in her hand, she looked round and up at him.
“Fleur Mont’s father lives on the river, doesn’t he? Is that far from here?”
“Mapledurham? I should think about ten miles.”
“I wonder if we shall see her at Ascot. I think she’s lovely.”
“Yes,” said Jon.
“I wonder you didn’t fall in love with her, Jon.”
“We were kids when I knew her.”
“I think she fell in love with you.”
“Why?”
“By the way she looks at you… She isn’t in love with Mr. Mont; she just likes him.”
“Oh!” said Jon.
Since in the coppice at Robin Hill Fleur had said “Jon!” in so strange a voice, he had known queer moments. There was that in him which could have caught her, balanced there on the log with her hands on his shoulders, and gone straight back into the past with her. There was that in him which abhorred the notion. There was that in him which sat apart and made a song about them both, and that in him which said: Get to work and drop all these silly feelings! He was, in fact, confused. The past, it seemed, did not die, as he had thought, but lived on beside the present, and sometimes, perhaps, became the future. Did one live for what one had not got? There was a wrinkling in his soul, and feverish draughts crept about within him. The whole thing was on his conscience—for if Jon had anything, he had a conscience.
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