The Forsyte Saga, Volume II. Indian Summer of a Forsyte. In Chancery
He gave her his arm, and solemnly they went. The room, which had been designed to enable twenty-four people to dine in comfort, held now but a little round table. In his present solitude the big dining-table oppressed old Jolyon; he had caused it to be removed till his son came back. Here in the company of two really good copies of Raphael Madonnas he was wont to dine alone. It was the only disconsolate hour of his day, this summer weather. He had never been a large eater, like that great chap Swithin, or Sylvanus Heythorp, or Anthony Thornworthy, those cronies of past times; and to dine alone, overlooked by the Madonnas, was to him but a sorrowful occupation, which he got through quickly, that he might come to the more spiritual enjoyment of his coffee and cigar. But this evening was a different matter! His eyes twinkled at her across the little table and he spoke of Italy and Switzerland, telling her stories of his travels there, and other experiences which he could no longer recount to his son and grand-daughter because they knew them. This fresh audience was precious to him; he had never become one of those old men who ramble round and round the fields of reminiscence. Himself quickly fatigued by the insensitive, he instinctively avoided fatiguing others, and his natural flirtatiousness towards beauty guarded him specially in his relations with a woman. He would have liked to draw her out, but though she murmured and smiled and seemed to be enjoying what he told her, he remained conscious of that mysterious remoteness which constituted half her fascination. He could not bear women who threw their shoulders and eyes at you, and chattered away; or hard-mouthed women who laid down the law and knew more than you did. There was only one quality in a woman that appealed to him – charm; and the quieter it was, the more he liked it. And this one had charm, shadowy as afternoon sunlight on those Italian hills and valleys he had loved. The feeling, too, that she was, as it were, apart, cloistered, made her seem nearer to himself, a strangely desirable companion. When a man is very old and quite out of the running, he loves to feel secure from the rivalries of youth, for he would still be first in the heart of beauty. And he drank his hock, and watched her lips, and felt nearly young. But the dog Balthasar lay watching her lips too, and despising in his heart the interruptions of their talk, and the tilting of those greenish glasses full of a golden fluid which was distasteful to him.
The light was just failing when they went back into the music-room. And, cigar in mouth, old Jolyon said:
“Play me some Chopin.”
By the cigars they smoke, and the composers they love, ye shall know the texture of men’s souls. Old Jolyon could not bear a strong cigar or Wagner’s music. He loved Beethoven and Mozart, Handel and Gluck, and Schumann, and, for some occult reason, the operas of Meyerbeer; but of late years he had been seduced by Chopin, just as in painting he had succumbed to Botticelli. In yielding to these tastes he had been conscious of divergence from the standard of the Golden Age. Their poetry was not that of Milton and Byron and Tennyson; of Raphael and Titian; Mozart and Beethoven. It was, as it were, behind a veil; their poetry hit no one in the face, but slipped its fingers under the ribs and turned and twisted, and melted up the heart. And, never certain that this was healthy, he did not care a rap so long as he could see the pictures of the one or hear the music of the other.
Irene sat down at the piano under the electric lamp festooned with pearl-grey, and old Jolyon, in an armchair, whence he could see her, crossed his legs and drew slowly at his cigar. She sat a few moments with her hands on the keys, evidently searching her mind for what to give him. Then she began and within old Jolyon there arose a sorrowful pleasure, not quite like anything else in the world. He fell slowly into a trance, interrupted only by the movements of taking the cigar out of his mouth at long intervals, and replacing it. She was there, and the hock within him, and the scent of tobacco; but there, too, was a world of sunshine lingering into moonlight, and pools with storks upon them, and bluish trees above, glowing with blurs of wine-red roses, and fields of lavender where milk-white cows were grazing, and a woman all shadowy, with dark eyes and a white neck, smiled, holding out her arms; and through air which was like music a star dropped and was caught on a cow’s horn. He opened his eyes. Beautiful piece; she played well – the touch of an angel! And he closed them again. He felt miraculously sad and happy, as one does, standing under a lime-tree in full honey flower. Not live one’s own life again, but just stand there and bask in the smile of a woman’s eyes, and enjoy the bouquet! And he jerked his hand; the dog Balthasar had reached up and licked it.
“Beautiful!” He said: “Go on – more Chopin!”
She began to play again. This time the resemblance between her and ‘Chopin’ struck him. The swaying he had noticed in her walk was in her playing too, and the Nocturne she had chosen and the soft darkness of her eyes, the light on her hair, as of moonlight from a golden moon. Seductive, yes; but nothing of Delilah in her or in that music. A long blue spiral from his cigar ascended and dispersed. ‘So we go out!’ he thought. ‘No more beauty! Nothing?’
Again Irene stopped.
“Would you like some Gluck? He used to write his music in a sunlit garden, with a bottle of Rhine wine beside him.”
“Ah! yes. Let’s have ‘Orfeo.’” Round about him now were fields of gold and silver flowers, white forms swaying in the sunlight, bright birds flying to and fro. All was summer. Lingering waves of sweetness and regret flooded his soul. Some cigar ash dropped, and taking out a silk handkerchief to brush it off, he inhaled a mingled scent as of snuff and eau de Cologne. ‘Ah!’ he thought, ‘Indian summer – that’s all!’ and he said: “You haven’t played me ‘Che faro.’”
She did not answer; did not move. He was conscious of something – some strange upset. Suddenly he saw her rise and turn away, and a pang of remorse shot through him. What a clumsy chap! Like Orpheus, she of course – she too was looking for her lost one in the hall of memory! And disturbed to the heart, he got up from his chair. She had gone to the great window at the far end. Gingerly he followed. Her hands were folded over her breast; he could just see her cheek, very white. And, quite emotionalized, he said:
“There, there, my love!” The words had escaped him mechanically, for they were those he used to Holly when she had a pain, but their effect was instantaneously distressing. She raised her arms, covered her face with them, and wept.
Old Jolyon stood gazing at her with eyes very deep from age. The passionate shame she seemed feeling at her abandonment, so unlike the control and quietude of her whole presence was as if she had never before broken down in the presence of another being.
“There, there – there, there!” he murmured, and putting his hand out reverently, touched her. She turned, and leaned the arms which covered her face against him. Old Jolyon stood very still, keeping one thin hand on her shoulder. Let her cry her heart out – it would do her good.
And the dog Balthasar, puzzled, sat down on his stern to examine them.
The window was still open, the curtains had not been drawn, the last of daylight from without mingled with faint intrusion from the lamp within; there was a scent of new-mown grass. With the wisdom of a long life old Jolyon did not speak. Even grief sobbed itself out in time; only Time was good for sorrow – Time who saw the passing of each mood, each emotion in turn; Time the layer-to-rest. There came into his mind the words: ‘As panteth the hart after cooling streams’ – but they were of no use to him. Then, conscious of a scent of violets, he knew she was drying her eyes. He put his chin forward, pressed his moustache against her forehead, and felt her shake with a quivering of her whole body, as of a tree which shakes itself free of raindrops. She put his hand to her lips, as if saying: “All over now! Forgive me!”
The kiss filled him with a strange comfort; he led her back to where she had been so upset. And the dog Balthasar, following, laid the bone of one of the cutlets they had eaten at their feet.
Anxious to obliterate the memory of that emotion, he could think of nothing better than china; and moving with her slowly from cabinet to cabinet, he kept taking up bits of Dresden and Lowestoft and Chelsea, turning them round and round with his thin, veined hands, whose skin, faintly freckled, had such an aged look.
“I bought this at Jobson’s,” he would say; “cost me thirty pounds. It’s very old. That dog leaves his bones all over the place. This old ‘ship-bowl’ I picked up at the sale when that precious rip, the Marquis, came to grief. But you don’t remember. Here’s a nice piece of Chelsea. Now, what would you say this was?” And he was comforted, feeling that, with her taste, she was taking a real interest in these things; for, after all, nothing better composes the nerves than a doubtful piece of china.
When the crunch of the carriage wheels was heard at last, he said:
“You must come again; you must come to lunch, then I can show you these by daylight, and my little sweet – she’s a dear little thing. This dog seems to have taken a fancy to you.”
For Balthasar, feeling that she was about to leave, was rubbing his side against her leg. Going out under the porch with her, he said:
“He’ll get you up in an hour and a quarter. Take this for your protegees,” and he slipped a cheque for fifty pounds into her hand. He saw her brightened eyes, and heard her murmur: “Oh! Uncle Jolyon!” and a real throb of pleasure went through him. That meant one or two poor creatures helped a little, and it meant that she would come again. He put his hand in at the window and grasped hers once more. The carriage rolled away. He stood looking at the moon and the shadows of the trees, and thought: ‘A sweet night! She…!’
II
Two days of rain, and summer set in bland and sunny. Old Jolyon walked and talked with Holly. At first he felt taller and full of a new vigour; then he felt restless. Almost every afternoon they would enter the coppice, and walk as far as the log. ‘Well, she’s not there!’ he would think, ‘of course not!’ And he would feel a little shorter, and drag his feet walking up the hill home, with his hand clapped to his left side. Now and then the thought would move in him: ‘Did she come – or did I dream it?’ and he would stare at space, while the dog Balthasar stared at him. Of course she would not come again! He opened the letters from Spain with less excitement. They were not returning till July; he felt, oddly, that he could bear it. Every day at dinner he screwed up his eyes and looked at where she had sat. She was not there, so he unscrewed his eyes again.
On the seventh afternoon he thought: ‘I must go up and get some boots.’ He ordered Beacon, and set out. Passing from Putney towards Hyde Park he reflected: ‘I might as well go to Chelsea and see her.’ And he called out: “Just drive me to where you took that lady the other night.” The coachman turned his broad red face, and his juicy lips answered: “The lady in grey, sir?”
“Yes, the lady in grey.” What other ladies were there! Stodgy chap!
The carriage stopped before a small three-storied block of flats, standing a little back from the river. With a practised eye old Jolyon saw that they were cheap. ‘I should think about sixty pound a year,’ he mused; and entering, he looked at the name-board. The name ‘Forsyte’ was not on it, but against ‘First Floor, Flat C’ were the words: ‘Mrs. Irene Heron.’ Ah! She had taken her maiden name again! And somehow this pleased him. He went upstairs slowly, feeling his side a little. He stood a moment, before ringing, to lose the feeling of drag and fluttering there. She would not be in! And then – Boots! The thought was black. What did he want with boots at his age? He could not wear out all those he had.
“Your mistress at home?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”
“Yes, sir, will you come this way?”
Old Jolyon followed a very little maid – not more than sixteen one would say – into a very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds were drawn. It held a cottage piano and little else save a vague fragrance and good taste. He stood in the middle, with his top hat in his hand, and thought: ‘I expect she’s very badly off!’ There was a mirror above the fireplace, and he saw himself reflected. An old-looking chap! He heard a rustle, and turned round. She was so close that his moustache almost brushed her forehead, just under her hair.
“I was driving up,” he said. “Thought I’d look in on you, and ask you how you got up the other night.”
And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved. She was really glad to see him, perhaps.
“Would you like to put on your hat and come for a drive in the Park?”
But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned. The Park! James and Emily! Mrs. Nicholas, or some other member of his precious family would be there very likely, prancing up and down. And they would go and wag their tongues about having seen him with her, afterwards. Better not! He did not wish to revive the echoes of the past on Forsyte ‘Change. He removed a white hair from the lapel of his closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed his hand over his cheeks, moustache, and square chin. It felt very hollow there under the cheekbones. He had not been eating much lately – he had better get that little whippersnapper who attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she had come back and when they were in the carriage, he said:
“Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens instead?” and added with a twinkle: “No prancing up and down there,” as if she had been in the secret of his thoughts.
Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts, and strolled towards the water.
“You’ve gone back to your maiden name, I see,” he said: “I’m not sorry.”
She slipped her hand under his arm: “Has June forgiven me, Uncle Jolyon?”
He answered gently: “Yes – yes; of course, why not?”
“And have you?”
“I? I forgave you as soon as I saw how the land really lay.” And perhaps he had; his instinct had always been to forgive the beautiful.
She drew a deep breath. “I never regretted – I couldn’t. Did you ever love very deeply, Uncle Jolyon?”
At that strange question old Jolyon stared before him. Had he? He did not seem to remember that he ever had. But he did not like to say this to the young woman whose hand was touching his arm, whose life was suspended, as it were, by memory of a tragic love. And he thought: ‘If I had met you when I was young I – I might have made a fool of myself, perhaps.’ And a longing to escape in generalities beset him.
“Love’s a queer thing,” he said, “fatal thing often. It was the Greeks – wasn’t it? – made love into a goddess; they were right, I dare say, but then they lived in the Golden Age.”
“Phil adored them.”
Phil! The word jarred him, for suddenly – with his power to see all round a thing, he perceived why she was putting up with him like this. She wanted to talk about her lover! Well! If it was any pleasure to her! And he said: “Ah! There was a bit of the sculptor in him, I fancy.”
“Yes. He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the whole-hearted way the Greeks gave themselves to art.”
Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for symmetry – clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer eyes of his, and high cheek-bones – Symmetry?
“You’re of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon.”
Old Jolyon looked round at her. Was she chaffing him? No, her eyes were soft as velvet. Was she flattering him? But if so, why? There was nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.
“Phil thought so. He used to say: ‘But I can never tell him that I admire him.’”
Ah! There it was again. Her dead lover; her desire to talk of him! And he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories, half grateful, as if he recognised what a link they were between herself and him.
“He was a very talented young fellow,” he murmured. “It’s hot; I feel the heat nowadays. Let’s sit down.”
They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves covered them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon. A pleasure to sit there and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with him. And the wish to increase that liking, if he could, made him go on:
“I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw. He’d be at his best with you. His ideas of art were a little new – to me “ – he had stiffed the word ‘fangled.’
“Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty.” Old Jolyon thought: ‘The devil he did!’ but answered with a twinkle: “Well, I have, or I shouldn’t be sitting here with you.” She was fascinating when she smiled with her eyes, like that!
“He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old. Phil had real insight.”
He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out of a longing to talk of her dead lover – not a bit; and yet it was precious to hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart which – quite true! – had never grown old. Was that because – unlike her and her dead lover, he had never loved to desperation, had always kept his balance, his sense of symmetry. Well! It had left him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty. And he thought, ‘If I were a painter or a sculptor! But I’m an old chap. Make hay while the sun shines.’
A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at the edge of the shadow from their tree. The sunlight fell cruelly on their pale, squashed, unkempt young faces. “We’re an ugly lot!” said old Jolyon suddenly. “It amazes me to see how – love triumphs over that.”
“Love triumphs over everything!”
“The young think so,” he muttered.
“Love has no age, no limit, and no death.”
With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life! But this extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he said: “Well, if it had limits, we shouldn’t be born; for by George! it’s got a lot to put up with.”
Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff. The great clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often got a rush of blood to the head – his circulation was not what it had been.
She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she murmured:
“It’s strange enough that I’m alive.”
Those words of Jo’s ‘Wild and lost’ came back to him.
“Ah!” he said: “my son saw you for a moment – that day.”
“Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a second it was – Phil.”
Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her hand over them, took it away again, and went on calmly: “That night I went to the Embankment; a woman caught me by the dress. She told me about herself. When one knows that others suffer, one’s ashamed.”
“One of those?”
She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of one who has never known a struggle with desperation. Almost against his will he muttered: “Tell me, won’t you?”
“I didn’t care whether I lived or died. When you’re like that, Fate ceases to want to kill you. She took care of me three days – she never left me. I had no money. That’s why I do what I can for them, now.”
But old Jolyon was thinking: ‘No money!’ What fate could compare with that? Every other was involved in it.
“I wish you had come to me,” he said. “Why didn’t you?” But Irene did not answer.
“Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose? Or was it June who kept you away? How are you getting on now?” His eyes involuntarily swept her body. Perhaps even now she was – ! And yet she wasn’t thin – not really!
“Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough.” The answer did not reassure him; he had lost confidence. And that fellow Soames! But his sense of justice stifled condemnation. No, she would certainly have died rather than take another penny from him. Soft as she looked, there must be strength in her somewhere – strength and fidelity. But what business had young Bosinney to have got run over and left her stranded like this!
“Well, you must come to me now,” he said, “for anything you want, or I shall be quite cut up.” And putting on his hat, he rose. “Let’s go and get some tea. I told that lazy chap to put the horses up for an hour, and come for me at your place. We’ll take a cab presently; I can’t walk as I used to.”
He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the gardens – the sound of her voice, the glancing of her eyes, the subtle beauty of a charming form moving beside him. He enjoyed their tea at Ruffel’s in the High Street, and came out thence with a great box of chocolates swung on his little finger. He enjoyed the drive back to Chelsea in a hansom, smoking his cigar. She had promised to come down next Sunday and play to him again, and already in thought he was plucking carnations and early roses for her to carry back to town. It was a pleasure to give her a little pleasure, if it WERE pleasure from an old chap like him! The carriage was already there when they arrived. Just like that fellow, who was always late when he was wanted! Old Jolyon went in for a minute to say good-bye. The little dark hall of the flat was impregnated with a disagreeable odour of patchouli, and on a bench against the wall – its only furniture – he saw a figure sitting. He heard Irene say softly: “Just one minute.” In the little drawing-room when the door was shut, he asked gravely: “One of your protegees?”
“Yes. Now thanks to you, I can do something for her.”
He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength had frightened so many in its time. The idea of her thus actually in contact with this outcast grieved and frightened him. What could she do for them? Nothing. Only soil and make trouble for herself, perhaps. And he said: “Take care, my dear! The world puts the worst construction on everything.”
“I know that.”
He was abashed by her quiet smile. “Well then – Sunday,” he murmured: “Good-bye.”
She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.
“Good-bye,” he said again; “take care of yourself.” And he went out, not looking towards the figure on the bench. He drove home by way of Hammersmith; that he might stop at a place he knew of and tell them to send her in two dozen of their best Burgundy. She must want picking-up sometimes! Only in Richmond Park did he remember that he had gone up to order himself some boots, and was surprised that he could have had so paltry an idea.
III
The little spirits of the past which throng an old man’s days had never pushed their faces up to his so seldom as in the seventy hours elapsing before Sunday came. The spirit of the future, with the charm of the unknown, put up her lips instead. Old Jolyon was not restless now, and paid no visits to the log, because she was coming to lunch. There is wonderful finality about a meal; it removes a world of doubts, for no one misses meals except for reasons beyond control. He played many games with Holly on the lawn, pitching them up to her who was batting so as to be ready to bowl to Jolly in the holidays. For she was not a Forsyte, but Jolly was – and Forsytes always bat, until they have resigned and reached the age of eighty-five. The dog Balthasar, in attendance, lay on the ball as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded, till his face was like the harvest moon. And because the time was getting shorter, each day was longer and more golden than the last. On Friday night he took a liver pill, his side hurt him rather, and though it was not the liver side, there is no remedy like that. Anyone telling him that he had found a new excitement in life and that excitement was not good for him, would have been met by one of those steady and rather defiant looks of his deep-set iron-grey eyes, which seemed to say: ‘I know my own business best.’ He always had and always would.
On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess to church, he visited the strawberry beds. There, accompanied by the dog Balthasar, he examined the plants narrowly and succeeded in finding at least two dozen berries which were really ripe. Stooping was not good for him, and he became very dizzy and red in the forehead. Having placed the strawberries in a dish on the dining-table, he washed his hands and bathed his forehead with eau de Cologne. There, before the mirror, it occurred to him that he was thinner. What a ‘threadpaper’ he had been when he was young! It was nice to be slim – he could not bear a fat chap; and yet perhaps his cheeks were too thin! She was to arrive by train at half-past twelve and walk up, entering from the road past Drage’s farm at the far end of the coppice. And, having looked into June’s room to see that there was hot water ready, he set forth to meet her, leisurely, for his heart was beating. The air smelled sweet, larks sang, and the Grand Stand at Epsom was visible. A perfect day! On just such a one, no doubt, six years ago, Soames had brought young Bosinney down with him to look at the site before they began to build. It was Bosinney who had pitched on the exact spot for the house – as June had often told him. In these days he was thinking much about that young fellow, as if his spirit were really haunting the field of his last work, on the chance of seeing – her. Bosinney – the one man who had possessed her heart, to whom she had given her whole self with rapture! At his age one could not, of course, imagine such things, but there stirred in him a queer vague aching – as it were the ghost of an impersonal jealousy; and a feeling, too, more generous, of pity for that love so early lost. All over in a few poor months! Well, well! He looked at his watch before entering the coppice – only a quarter past, twenty-five minutes to wait! And then, turning the corner of the path, he saw her exactly where he had seen her the first time, on the log; and realised that she must have come by the earlier train to sit there alone for a couple of hours at least. Two hours of her society missed! What memory could make that log so dear to her? His face showed what he was thinking, for she said at once: