Chapter IX: Irene’s Return (1)

After leaving James and old Jolyon in the mortuary of the
hospital, Soames hurried aimlessly along the streets.

The tragic event of Bosinney’s death altered the complexion of
everything. There was no longer the same feeling that to lose a
minute would be fatal, nor would he now risk communicating the
fact of his wife’s flight to anyone till the inquest was over.

That morning he had risen early, before the postman came, had
taken the first-post letters from the box himself, and, though
there had been none from Irene, he had made an opportunity of
telling Bilson that her mistress was at the sea; he would
probably, he said, be going down himself from Saturday to Monday.
This had given him time to breathe, time to leave no stone
unturned to find her.

But now, cut off from taking steps by Bosinney’s death—that
strange death, to think of which was like putting a hot iron to
his heart, like lifting a great weight from it—he did not know
how to pass his day; and he wandered here and there through the
streets, looking at every face he met, devoured by a hundred
anxieties.

And as he wandered, he thought of him who had finished his
wandering, his prowling, and would never haunt his house again.

Already in the afternoon he passed posters announcing the
identity of the dead man, and bought the papers to see what they
said. He would stop their mouths if he could, and he went into
the City, and was closeted with Boulter for a long time.

On his way home, passing the steps of Jobson’s about half past
four, he met George Forsyte, who held out an evening paper to
Soames, saying:

“Here! Have you seen this about the poor Buccaneer?”

Soames answered stonily: “Yes.”

George stared at him. He had never liked Soames; he now held him
responsible for Bosinney’s death. Soames had done for him—done
for him by that act of property that had sent the Buccaneer to
run amok that fatal afternoon.

“The poor fellow,” he was thinking, “was so cracked with
jealousy, so cracked for his vengeance, that he heard nothing of
the omnibus in that infernal fog.”

Soames had done for him! And this judgment was in George’s eyes.

“They talk of suicide here,” he said at last. “_That_ cat won’t
jump.”

Soames shook his head. “An accident,” he muttered.

Clenching his fist on the paper, George crammed it into his
pocket. He could not resist a parting shot.

“H’mm! All flourishing at home? Any little Soameses yet?”

With a face as white as the steps of Jobson’s, and a lip raised
as if snarling, Soames brushed past him and was gone....

On reaching home, and entering the little lighted hall with his
latchkey, the first thing that caught his eye was his wife’s
gold-mounted umbrella lying on the rug chest. Flinging off his
fur coat, he hurried to the drawing-room.

The curtains were drawn for the night, a bright fire of
cedar-logs burned in the grate, and by its light he saw Irene
sitting in her usual corner on the sofa. He shut the door softly,
and went towards her. She did not move, and did not seem to see
him.

“So you’ve come back?” he said. “Why are you sitting here in the
dark?”

Then he caught sight of her face, so white and motionless that it
seemed as though the blood must have stopped flowing in her
veins; and her eyes, that looked enormous, like the great, wide,
startled brown eyes of an owl.

Huddled in her grey fur against the sofa cushions, she had a
strange resemblance to a captive owl, bunched in its soft
feathers against the wires of a cage. The supple erectness of her
figure was gone, as though she had been broken by cruel exercise;
as though there were no longer any reason for being beautiful,
and supple, and erect.

“So you’ve come back,” he repeated.

She never looked up, and never spoke, the firelight playing over
her motionless figure.

Suddenly she tried to rise, but he prevented her; it was then
that he understood.

She had come back like an animal wounded to death, not knowing
where to turn, not knowing what she was doing. The sight of her
figure, huddled in the fur, was enough.

He knew then for certain that Bosinney had been her lover; knew
that she had seen the report of his death—perhaps, like himself,
had bought a paper at the draughty corner of a street, and read
it.

She had come back then of her own accord, to the cage she had
pined to be free of—and taking in all the tremendous significance
of this, he longed to cry: “Take your hated body, that I love,
out of my house! Take away that pitiful white face, so cruel and
soft—before I crush it. Get out of my sight; never let me see you
again!”

And, at those unspoken words, he seemed to see her rise and move
away, like a woman in a terrible dream, from which she was
fighting to awake—rise and go out into the dark and cold, without
a thought of him, without so much as the knowledge of his
presence.

Then he cried, contradicting what he had not yet spoken, “No;
stay there!” And turning away from her, he sat down in his
accustomed chair on the other side of the hearth.

They sat in silence.

And Soames thought: “Why is all this? Why should I suffer so?
What have I done? It is not my fault!”

Again he looked at her, huddled like a bird that is shot and
dying, whose poor breast you see panting as the air is taken from
it, whose poor eyes look at you who have shot it, with a slow,
soft, unseeing look, taking farewell of all that is good—of the
sun, and the air, and its mate.

So they sat, by the firelight, in the silence, one on each side
of the hearth.

And the fume of the burning cedar logs, that he loved so well,
seemed to grip Soames by the throat till he could bear it no
longer. And going out into the hall he flung the door wide, to
gulp down the cold air that came in; then without hat or overcoat
went out into the Square.

Along the garden rails a half-starved cat came rubbing her way
towards him, and Soames thought: “Suffering! when will it cease,
my suffering?”

At a front door across the way was a man of his acquaintance
named Rutter, scraping his boots, with an air of “I am master
here.” And Soames walked on.

From far in the clear air the bells of the church where he and
Irene had been married were pealing in “practice” for the advent
of Christ, the chimes ringing out above the sound of traffic. He
felt a craving for strong drink, to lull him to indifference, or
rouse him to fury. If only he could burst out of himself, out of
this web that for the first time in his life he felt around him.
If only he could surrender to the thought: “Divorce her—turn her
out! She has forgotten you. Forget her!”

If only he could surrender to the thought: “Let her go—she has
suffered enough!”

If only he could surrender to the desire: “Make a slave of
her—she is in your power!”

If only even he could surrender to the sudden vision: “What does
it all matter?” Forget himself for a minute, forget that it
mattered what he did, forget that whatever he did he must
sacrifice something.

If only he could act on an impulse!

He could forget nothing; surrender to no thought, vision, or
desire; it was all too serious; too close around him, an
unbreakable cage.

On the far side of the Square newspaper boys were calling their
evening wares, and the ghoulish cries mingled and jangled with
the sound of those church bells.

Soames covered his ears. The thought flashed across him that but
for a chance, he himself, and not Bosinney, might be lying dead,
and she, instead of crouching there like a shot bird with those
dying eyes....

Something soft touched his legs, the cat was rubbing herself
against them. And a sob that shook him from head to foot burst
from Soames’ chest. Then all was still again in the dark, where
the houses seemed to stare at him, each with a master and
mistress of its own, and a secret story of happiness or sorrow.

And suddenly he saw that his own door was open, and black against
the light from the hall a man standing with his back turned.
Something slid too in his breast, and he stole up close behind.

He could see his own fur coat flung across the carved oak chair;
the Persian rugs; the silver bowls, the rows of porcelain plates
arranged along the walls, and this unknown man who was standing
there.

And sharply he asked: “What is it you want, sir?”

The visitor turned. It was young Jolyon.

“The door was open,” he said. “Might I see your wife for a
minute, I have a message for her?”

Soames gave him a strange, sidelong stare.

“My wife can see no one,” he muttered doggedly.

Young Jolyon answered gently: “I shouldn’t keep her a minute.”

Soames brushed by him and barred the way.

“She can see no one,” he said again.

Young Jolyon’s glance shot past him into the hall, and Soames
turned. There in the drawing-room doorway stood Irene, her eyes
were wild and eager, her lips were parted, her hands
outstretched. In the sight of both men that light vanished from
her face; her hands dropped to her sides; she stood like stone.

Soames spun round, and met his visitor’s eyes, and at the look he
saw in them, a sound like a snarl escaped him. He drew his lips
back in the ghost of a smile.

“This is my house,” he said; “I manage my own affairs. I’ve told
you once—I tell you again; we are not at home.”

And in young Jolyon’s face he slammed the door.

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THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME II

By John Galsworthy

TO ANDRÉ CHEVRILLON

INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE

“And Summer’s lease hath all too short a date.”
—Shakespeare

I

In the last day of May in the early ’nineties, about six o’clock
of the evening, old Jolyon Forsyte sat under the oak tree below
the terrace of his house at Robin Hill. He was waiting for the
midges to bite him, before abandoning the glory of the afternoon.
His thin brown hand, where blue veins stood out, held the end of
a cigar in its tapering, long-nailed fingers—a pointed polished
nail had survived with him from those earlier Victorian days when
to touch nothing, even with the tips of the fingers, had been so
distinguished. His domed forehead, great white moustache, lean
cheeks, and long lean jaw were covered from the westering
sunshine by an old brown Panama hat. His legs were crossed; in
all his attitude was serenity and a kind of elegance, as of an
old man who every morning put eau de Cologne upon his silk
handkerchief. At his feet lay a woolly brown-and-white dog trying
to be a Pomeranian—the dog Balthasar between whom and old Jolyon
primal aversion had changed into attachment with the years. Close
to his chair was a swing, and on the swing was seated one of
Holly’s dolls—called “Duffer Alice”—with her body fallen over her
legs and her doleful nose buried in a black petticoat. She was
never out of disgrace, so it did not matter to her how she sat.
Below the oak tree the lawn dipped down a bank, stretched to the
fernery, and, beyond that refinement, became fields, dropping to
the pond, the coppice, and the prospect—“Fine, remarkable”—at
which Swithin Forsyte, from under this very tree, had stared five
years ago when he drove down with Irene to look at the house. Old
Jolyon had heard of his brother’s exploit—that drive which had
become quite celebrated on Forsyte ’Change. Swithin! And the
fellow had gone and died, last November, at the age of only
seventy-nine, renewing the doubt whether Forsytes could live for
ever, which had first arisen when Aunt Ann passed away. Died! and
left only Jolyon and James, Roger and Nicholas and Timothy,
Julia, Hester, Susan! And old Jolyon thought: “Eighty-five! I
don’t feel it—except when I get that pain.”

His memory went searching. He had not felt his age since he had
bought his nephew Soames’ ill-starred house and settled into it
here at Robin Hill over three years ago. It was as if he had been
getting younger every spring, living in the country with his son
and his grandchildren—June, and the little ones of the second
marriage, Jolly and Holly; living down here out of the racket of
London and the cackle of Forsyte ’Change, free of his boards, in
a delicious atmosphere of no work and all play, with plenty of
occupation in the perfecting and mellowing of the house and its
twenty acres, and in ministering to the whims of Holly and Jolly.
All the knots and crankiness, which had gathered in his heart
during that long and tragic business of June, Soames, Irene his
wife, and poor young Bosinney, had been smoothed out. Even June
had thrown off her melancholy at last—witness this travel in
Spain she was taking now with her father and her stepmother.
Curiously perfect peace was left by their departure; blissful,
yet blank, because his son was not there. Jo was never anything
but a comfort and a pleasure to him nowadays—an amiable chap; but
women, somehow—even the best—got a little on one’s nerves, unless
of course one admired them.

Far-off a cuckoo called; a wood-pigeon was cooing from the first
elm-tree in the field, and how the daisies and buttercups had
sprung up after the last mowing! The wind had got into the sou’
west, too—a delicious air, sappy! He pushed his hat back and let
the sun fall on his chin and cheek. Somehow, to-day, he wanted
company—wanted a pretty face to look at. People treated the old
as if they wanted nothing. And with the un-Forsytean philosophy
which ever intruded on his soul, he thought: “One’s never had
enough. With a foot in the grave one’ll want something, I
shouldn’t be surprised!” Down here—away from the exigencies of
affairs—his grandchildren, and the flowers, trees, birds of his
little domain, to say nothing of sun and moon and stars above
them, said, “Open, sesame,” to him day and night. And sesame had
opened—how much, perhaps, he did not know. He had always been
responsive to what they had begun to call “Nature,” genuinely,
almost religiously responsive, though he had never lost his habit
of calling a sunset a sunset and a view a view, however deeply
they might move him. But nowadays Nature actually made him ache,
he appreciated it so. Every one of these calm, bright,
lengthening days, with Holly’s hand in his, and the dog Balthasar
in front looking studiously for what he never found, he would
stroll, watching the roses open, fruit budding on the walls,
sunlight brightening the oak leaves and saplings in the coppice,
watching the water-lily leaves unfold and glisten, and the
silvery young corn of the one wheat field; listening to the
starlings and skylarks, and the Alderney cows chewing the cud,
flicking slow their tufted tails; and every one of these fine
days he ached a little from sheer love of it all, feeling
perhaps, deep down, that he had not very much longer to enjoy it.
The thought that some day—perhaps not ten years hence, perhaps
not five—all this world would be taken away from him, before he
had exhausted his powers of loving it, seemed to him in the
nature of an injustice brooding over his horizon. If anything
came after this life, it wouldn’t be what he wanted; not Robin
Hill, and flowers and birds and pretty faces—too few, even now,
of those about him! With the years his dislike of humbug had
increased; the orthodoxy he had worn in the ’sixties, as he had
worn side-whiskers out of sheer exuberance, had long dropped off,
leaving him reverent before three things alone—beauty, upright
conduct, and the sense of property; and the greatest of these now
was beauty. He had always had wide interests, and, indeed could
still read _The Times_, but he was liable at any moment to put it
down if he heard a blackbird sing. Upright conduct,
property—somehow, they were tiring; the blackbirds and the
sunsets never tired him, only gave him an uneasy feeling that he
could not get enough of them. Staring into the stilly radiance of
the early evening and at the little gold and white flowers on the
lawn, a thought came to him: This weather was like the music of
“Orfeo,” which he had recently heard at Covent Garden. A
beautiful opera, not like Meyerbeer, nor even quite Mozart, but,
in its way, perhaps even more lovely; something classical and of
the Golden Age about it, chaste and mellow, and the Ravogli
“almost worthy of the old days”—highest praise he could bestow.
The yearning of Orpheus for the beauty he was losing, for his
love going down to Hades, as in life love and beauty did go—the
yearning which sang and throbbed through the golden music,
stirred also in the lingering beauty of the world that evening.
And with the tip of his cork-soled, elastic-sided boot he
involuntarily stirred the ribs of the dog Balthasar, causing the
animal to wake and attack his fleas; for though he was supposed
to have none, nothing could persuade him of the fact. When he had
finished he rubbed the place he had been scratching against his
master’s calf, and settled down again with his chin over the
instep of the disturbing boot. And into old Jolyon’s mind came a
sudden recollection—a face he had seen at that opera three weeks
ago—Irene, the wife of his precious nephew Soames, that man of
property! Though he had not met her since the day of the “At
Home” in his old house at Stanhope Gate, which celebrated his
granddaughter June’s ill-starred engagement to young Bosinney, he
had remembered her at once, for he had always admired her—a very
pretty creature. After the death of young Bosinney, whose
mistress she had so reprehensibly become, he had heard that she
had left Soames at once. Goodness only knew what she had been
doing since. That sight of her face—a side view—in the row in
front, had been literally the only reminder these three years
that she was still alive. No one ever spoke of her. And yet Jo
had told him something once—something which had upset him
completely. The boy had got it from George Forsyte, he believed,
who had seen Bosinney in the fog the day he was run
over—something which explained the young fellow’s distress—an act
of Soames towards his wife—a shocking act. Jo had seen her, too,
that afternoon, after the news was out, seen her for a moment,
and his description had always lingered in old Jolyon’s
mind—“wild and lost” he had called her. And next day June had
gone there—bottled up her feelings and gone there, and the maid
had cried and told her how her mistress had slipped out in the
night and vanished. A tragic business altogether! One thing was
certain—Soames had never been able to lay hands on her again. And
he was living at Brighton, and journeying up and down—a fitting
fate, the man of property! For when he once took a dislike to
anyone—as he had to his nephew—old Jolyon never got over it. He
remembered still the sense of relief with which he had heard the
news of Irene’s disappearance. It had been shocking to think of
her a prisoner in that house to which she must have wandered
back, when Jo saw her, wandered back for a moment—like a wounded
animal to its hole after seeing that news, “Tragic death of an
Architect,” in the street. Her face had struck him very much the
other night—more beautiful than he had remembered, but like a
mask, with something going on beneath it. A young woman
still—twenty-eight perhaps. Ah, well! Very likely she had another
lover by now. But at this subversive thought—for married women
should never love: once, even, had been too much—his instep rose,
and with it the dog Balthasar’s head. The sagacious animal stood
up and looked into old Jolyon’s face. “Walk?” he seemed to say;
and old Jolyon answered: “Come on, old chap!”

Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations
of buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery. This feature,
where very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below
the level of the lawn so that it might come up again on the level
of the other lawn and give the impression of irregularity, so
important in horticulture. Its rocks and earth were beloved of
the dog Balthasar, who sometimes found a mole there. Old Jolyon
made a point of passing through it because, though it was not
beautiful, he intended that it should be, some day, and he would
think: “I must get Varr to come down and look at it; he’s better
than Beech.” For plants, like houses and human complaints,
required the best expert consideration. It was inhabited by
snails, and if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point
to one and tell them the story of the little boy who said: “Have
plummers got leggers, Mother?” “No, sonny.” “Then darned if I
haven’t been and swallowed a snileybob.” And when they skipped
and clutched his hand, thinking of the snileybob going down the
little boy’s “red lane,” his eyes would twinkle. Emerging from
the fernery, he opened the wicket gate, which just there led into
the first field, a large and park-like area, out of which, within
brick walls, the vegetable garden had been carved. Old Jolyon
avoided this, which did not suit his mood, and made down the hill
towards the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two,
gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an oldish dog who
takes the same walk every day. Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon
stood, noting another water-lily opened since yesterday; he would
show it to Holly to-morrow, when “his little sweet” had got over
the upset which had followed on her eating a tomato at lunch—her
little arrangements were very delicate. Now that Jolly had gone
to school—his first term—Holly was with him nearly all day long,
and he missed her badly. He felt that pain too, which often
bothered him now, a little dragging at his left side. He looked
back up the hill. Really, poor young Bosinney had made an
uncommonly good job of the house; he would have done very well
for himself if he had lived! And where was he now? Perhaps, still
haunting this, the site of his last work, of his tragic love
affair. Or was Philip Bosinney’s spirit diffused in the general?
Who could say? That dog was getting his legs muddy! And he moved
towards the coppice. There had been the most delightful lot of
bluebells, and he knew where some still lingered like little
patches of sky fallen in between the trees, away out of the sun.
He passed the cow-houses and the hen-houses there installed, and
pursued a path into the thick of the saplings, making for one of
the bluebell plots. Balthasar, preceding him once more, uttered a
low growl. Old Jolyon stirred him with his foot, but the dog
remained motionless, just where there was no room to pass, and
the hair rose slowly along the centre of his woolly back. Whether
from the growl and the look of the dog’s stivered hair, or from
the sensation which a man feels in a wood, old Jolyon also felt
something move along his spine. And then the path turned, and
there was an old mossy log, and on it a woman sitting. Her face
was turned away, and he had just time to think: “She’s
trespassing—I must have a board put up!” before she turned.
Powers above! The face he had seen at the opera—the very woman he
had just been thinking of! In that confused moment he saw things
blurred, as if a spirit—queer effect—the slant of sunlight
perhaps on her violet-grey frock! And then she rose and stood
smiling, her head a little to one side. Old Jolyon thought: “How
pretty she is!” She did not speak, neither did he; and he
realized why with a certain admiration. She was here no doubt
because of some memory, and did not mean to try and get out of it
by vulgar explanation.

“Don’t let that dog touch your frock,” he said; “he’s got wet
feet. Come here, you!”

But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor, who put her
hand down and stroked his head. Old Jolyon said quickly:

“I saw you at the opera the other night; you didn’t notice me.”

“Oh, yes! I did.”

He felt a subtle flattery in that, as though she had added: “Do
you think one could miss seeing you?”

“They’re all in Spain,” he remarked abruptly. “I’m alone; I drove
up for the opera. The Ravogli’s good. Have you seen the
cow-houses?”

In a situation so charged with mystery and something very like
emotion he moved instinctively towards that bit of property, and
she moved beside him. Her figure swayed faintly, like the best
kind of French figures; her dress, too, was a sort of French
grey. He noticed two or three silver threads in her
amber-coloured hair, strange hair with those dark eyes of hers,
and that creamy-pale face. A sudden sidelong look from the
velvety brown eyes disturbed him. It seemed to come from deep and
far, from another world almost, or at all events from some one
not living very much in this. And he said mechanically:

“Where are you living now?”

“I have a little flat in Chelsea.”

He did not want to hear what she was doing, did not want to hear
anything; but the perverse word came out:

“Alone?”

She nodded. It was a relief to know that. And it came into his
mind that, but for a twist of fate, she would have been mistress
of this coppice, showing these cow-houses to him, a visitor.

“All Alderneys,” he muttered; “they give the best milk. This
one’s a pretty creature. Woa, Myrtle!”

The fawn-coloured cow, with eyes as soft and brown as Irene’s
own, was standing absolutely still, not having long been milked.
She looked round at them out of the corner of those lustrous,
mild, cynical eyes, and from her grey lips a little dribble of
saliva threaded its way towards the straw. The scent of hay and
vanilla and ammonia rose in the dim light of the cool cow-house;
and old Jolyon said:

“You must come up and have some dinner with me. I’ll send you
home in the carriage.”

He perceived a struggle going on within her; natural, no doubt,
with her memories. But he wanted her company; a pretty face, a
charming figure, beauty! He had been alone all the afternoon.
Perhaps his eyes were wistful, for she answered: “Thank you,
Uncle Jolyon. I should like to.”

He rubbed his hands, and said:

“Capital! Let’s go up, then!” And, preceded by the dog Balthasar,
they ascended through the field. The sun was almost level in
their faces now, and he could see, not only those silver threads,
but little lines, just deep enough to stamp her beauty with a
coin-like fineness—the special look of life unshared with others.
“I’ll take her in by the terrace,” he thought: “I won’t make a
common visitor of her.”

“What do you do all day?” he said.

“Teach music; I have another interest, too.”

“Work!” said old Jolyon, picking up the doll from off the swing,
and smoothing its black petticoat. “Nothing like it, is there? I
don’t do any now. I’m getting on. What interest is that?”

“Trying to help women who’ve come to grief.” Old Jolyon did not
quite understand. “To grief?” he repeated; then realised with a
shock that she meant exactly what he would have meant himself if
he had used that expression. Assisting the Magdalenes of London!
What a weird and terrifying interest! And, curiosity overcoming
his natural shrinking, he asked:

“Why? What do you do for them?”

“Not much. I’ve no money to spare. I can only give sympathy and
food sometimes.”

Involuntarily old Jolyon’s hand sought his purse. He said
hastily: “How d’you get hold of them?”

“I go to a hospital.”

“A hospital! Phew!”

“What hurts me most is that once they nearly all had some sort of
beauty.”

Old Jolyon straightened the doll. “Beauty!” he ejaculated: “Ha!
Yes! A sad business!” and he moved towards the house. Through a
French window, under sun-blinds not yet drawn up, he preceded her
into the room where he was wont to study _The Times_ and the
sheets of an agricultural magazine, with huge illustrations of
mangold wurzels, and the like, which provided Holly with material
for her paint brush.

“Dinner’s in half an hour. You’d like to wash your hands! I’ll
take you to June’s room.”

He saw her looking round eagerly; what changes since she had last
visited this house with her husband, or her lover, or both
perhaps—he did not know, could not say! All that was dark, and he
wished to leave it so. But what changes! And in the hall he said:

“My boy Jo’s a painter, you know. He’s got a lot of taste. It
isn’t mine, of course, but I’ve let him have his way.”

She was standing very still, her eyes roaming through the hall
and music room, as it now was—all thrown into one, under the
great skylight. Old Jolyon had an odd impression of her. Was she
trying to conjure somebody from the shades of that space where
the colouring was all pearl-grey and silver? He would have had
gold himself; more lively and solid. But Jo had French tastes,
and it had come out shadowy like that, with an effect as of the
fume of cigarettes the chap was always smoking, broken here and
there by a little blaze of blue or crimson colour. It was not
_his_ dream! Mentally he had hung this space with those
gold-framed masterpieces of still and stiller life which he had
bought in days when quantity was precious. And now where were
they? Sold for a song! That something which made him, alone among
Forsytes, move with the times had warned him against the struggle
to retain them. But in his study he still had “Dutch Fishing
Boats at Sunset.”

He began to mount the stairs with her, slowly, for he felt his
side.

“These are the bathrooms,” he said, “and other arrangements. I’ve
had them tiled. The nurseries are along there. And this is Jo’s
and his wife’s. They all communicate. But you remember, I
expect.”

Irene nodded. They passed on, up the gallery and entered a large
room with a small bed, and several windows.

“This is mine,” he said. The walls were covered with the
photographs of children and watercolour sketches, and he added
doubtfully:

“These are Jo’s. The view’s first-rate. You can see the Grand
Stand at Epsom in clear weather.”

The sun was down now, behind the house, and over the “prospect” a
luminous haze had settled, emanation of the long and prosperous
day. Few houses showed, but fields and trees faintly glistened,
away to a loom of downs.

“The country’s changing,” he said abruptly, “but there it’ll be
when we’re all gone. Look at those thrushes—the birds are sweet
here in the mornings. I’m glad to have washed my hands of
London.”

Her face was close to the window pane, and he was struck by its
mournful look. “Wish I could make her look happy!” he thought. “A
pretty face, but sad!” And taking up his can of hot water he went
out into the gallery.

“This is June’s room,” he said, opening the next door and putting
the can down; “I think you’ll find everything.” And closing the
door behind her he went back to his own room. Brushing his hair
with his great ebony brushes, and dabbing his forehead with eau
de Cologne, he mused. She had come so strangely—a sort of
visitation; mysterious, even romantic, as if his desire for
company, for beauty, had been fulfilled by whatever it was which
fulfilled that sort of thing. And before the mirror he
straightened his still upright figure, passed the brushes over
his great white moustache, touched up his eyebrows with eau de
Cologne, and rang the bell.

“I forgot to let them know that I have a lady to dinner with me.
Let cook do something extra, and tell Beacon to have the landau
and pair at half-past ten to drive her back to Town to-night. Is
Miss Holly asleep?”

The maid thought not. And old Jolyon, passing down the gallery,
stole on tiptoe towards the nursery, and opened the door whose
hinges he kept specially oiled that he might slip in and out in
the evenings without being heard.

But Holly _was_ asleep, and lay like a miniature Madonna, of that
type which the old painters could not tell from Venus, when they
had completed her. Her long dark lashes clung to her cheeks; on
her face was perfect peace—her little arrangements were evidently
all right again. And old Jolyon, in the twilight of the room,
stood adoring her! It was so charming, solemn, and loving—that
little face. He had more than his share of the blessed capacity
of living again in the young. They were to him his future
life—all of a future life that his fundamental pagan sanity
perhaps admitted. There she was with everything before her, and
his blood—some of it—in her tiny veins. There she was, his little
companion, to be made as happy as ever he could make her, so that
she knew nothing but love. His heart swelled, and he went out,
stilling the sound of his patent-leather boots. In the corridor
an eccentric notion attacked him: To think that children should
come to that which Irene had told him she was helping! Women who
were all, once, little things like this one sleeping there! “I
must give her a cheque!” he mused; “Can’t bear to think of them!”
They had never borne reflecting on, those poor outcasts; wounding
too deeply the core of true refinement hidden under layers of
conformity to the sense of property—wounding too grievously the
deepest thing in him—a love of beauty which could give him, even
now, a flutter of the heart, thinking of his evening in the
society of a pretty woman. And he went downstairs, through the
swinging doors, to the back regions. There, in the wine-cellar,
was a hock worth at least two pounds a bottle, a Steinberg
Cabinet, better than any Johannisberg that ever went down throat;
a wine of perfect bouquet, sweet as a nectarine—nectar indeed! He
got a bottle out, handling it like a baby, and holding it level
to the light, to look. Enshrined in its coat of dust, that mellow
coloured, slender-necked bottle gave him deep pleasure. Three
years to settle down again since the move from Town—ought to be
in prime condition! Thirty-five years ago he had bought it—thank
God he had kept his palate, and earned the right to drink it. She
would appreciate this; not a spice of acidity in a dozen. He
wiped the bottle, drew the cork with his own hands, put his nose
down, inhaled its perfume, and went back to the music room.

Irene was standing by the piano; she had taken off her hat and a
lace scarf she had been wearing, so that her gold-coloured hair
was visible, and the pallor of her neck. In her grey frock she
made a pretty picture for old Jolyon, against the rosewood of the
piano.

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
_protégées_,” 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.