Chapter IX: Irene’s Return (3)

Old Jolyon’s heart gave a flutter, and for a second the room was
clouded; then it cleared, and he said with a twinkle:

“Who’s been dressing her up?”

“Mam’zelle.”

“Hollee! Don’t be foolish!”

That prim little Frenchwoman! She hadn’t yet got over the music
lessons being taken away from her. That wouldn’t help. His little
sweet was the only friend they had. Well, they were her lessons.
And he shouldn’t budge shouldn’t budge for anything. He stroked
the warm wool on Balthasar’s head, and heard Holly say: “When
mother’s home, there won’t be any changes, will there? She
doesn’t like strangers, you know.”

The child’s words seemed to bring the chilly atmosphere of
opposition about old Jolyon, and disclose all the menace to his
new-found freedom. Ah! He would have to resign himself to being
an old man at the mercy of care and love, or fight to keep this
new and prized companionship; and to fight tired him to death.
But his thin, worn face hardened into resolution till it appeared
all Jaw. This was his house, and his affair; he should not budge!
He looked at his watch, old and thin like himself; he had owned
it fifty years. Past four already! And kissing the top of Holly’s
head in passing, he went down to the hall. He wanted to get hold
of her before she went up to give her lesson. At the first sound
of wheels he stepped out into the porch, and saw at once that the
victoria was empty.

“The train’s in, sir; but the lady ’asn’t come.”

Old Jolyon gave him a sharp upward look, his eyes seemed to push
away that fat chap’s curiosity, and defy him to see the bitter
disappointment he was feeling.

“Very well,” he said, and turned back into the house. He went to
his study and sat down, quivering like a leaf. What did this
mean? She might have lost her train, but he knew well enough she
hadn’t. “Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon.” Why “Good-bye” and not
“Good-night”. And that hand of hers lingering in the air. And her
kiss. What did it mean? Vehement alarm and irritation took
possession of him. He got up and began to pace the Turkey carpet,
between window and wall. She was going to give him up! He felt it
for certain—and he defenceless. An old man wanting to look on
beauty! It was ridiculous! Age closed his mouth, paralysed his
power to fight. He had no right to what was warm and living, no
right to anything but memories and sorrow. He could not plead
with her; even an old man has his dignity. Defenceless! For an
hour, lost to bodily fatigue, he paced up and down, past the bowl
of carnations he had plucked, which mocked him with its scent. Of
all things hard to bear, the prostration of will-power is
hardest, for one who has always had his way. Nature had got him
in its net, and like an unhappy fish he turned and swam at the
meshes, here and there, found no hole, no breaking point. They
brought him tea at five o’clock, and a letter. For a moment hope
beat up in him. He cut the envelope with the butter knife, and
read:

“DEAREST UNCLE JOLYON,—I can’t bear to write anything that may
disappoint you, but I was too cowardly to tell you last night. I
feel I can’t come down and give Holly any more lessons, now that
June is coming back. Some things go too deep to be forgotten. It
has been such a joy to see you and Holly. Perhaps I shall still
see you sometimes when you come up, though I’m sure it’s not good
for you; I can see you are tiring yourself too much. I believe
you ought to rest quite quietly all this hot weather, and now you
have your son and June coming back you will be so happy. Thank
you a million times for all your sweetness to me.

“Lovingly your
IRENE.”

So, there it was! Not good for him to have pleasure and what he
chiefly cared about; to try and put off feeling the inevitable
end of all things, the approach of death with its stealthy,
rustling footsteps. Not good for him! Not even she could see how
she was his new lease of interest in life, the incarnation of all
the beauty he felt slipping from him.

His tea grew cold, his cigar remained unlit; and up and down he
paced, torn between his dignity and his hold on life. Intolerable
to be squeezed out slowly, without a say of your own, to live on
when your will was in the hands of others bent on weighing you to
the ground with care and love. Intolerable! He would see what
telling her the truth would do—the truth that he wanted the sight
of her more than just a lingering on. He sat down at his old
bureau and took a pen. But he could not write. There was
something revolting in having to plead like this; plead that she
should warm his eyes with her beauty. It was tantamount to
confessing dotage. He simply could not. And instead, he wrote:

“I had hoped that the memory of old sores would not be allowed to
stand in the way of what is a pleasure and a profit to me and my
little grand-daughter. But old men learn to forego their whims;
they are obliged to, even the whim to live must be foregone
sooner or later; and perhaps the sooner the better.

“My love to you,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”

“Bitter,” he thought, “but I can’t help it. I’m tired.” He sealed
and dropped it into the box for the evening post, and hearing it
fall to the bottom, thought: “There goes all I’ve looked forward
to!”

That evening after dinner which he scarcely touched, after his
cigar which he left half-smoked for it made him feel faint, he
went very slowly upstairs and stole into the night-nursery. He
sat down on the window-seat. A night-light was burning, and he
could just see Holly’s face, with one hand underneath the cheek.
An early cockchafer buzzed in the Japanese paper with which they
had filled the grate, and one of the horses in the stable stamped
restlessly. To sleep like that child! He pressed apart two rungs
of the venetian blind and looked out. The moon was rising,
blood-red. He had never seen so red a moon. The woods and fields
out there were dropping to sleep too, in the last glimmer of the
summer light. And beauty, like a spirit, walked. “I’ve had a long
life,” he thought, “the best of nearly everything. I’m an
ungrateful chap; I’ve seen a lot of beauty in my time. Poor young
Bosinney said I had a sense of beauty. There’s a man in the moon
to-night!” A moth went by, another, another. “Ladies in grey!” He
closed his eyes. A feeling that he would never open them again
beset him; he let it grow, let himself sink; then, with a shiver,
dragged the lids up. There was something wrong with him, no
doubt, deeply wrong; he would have to have the doctor after all.
It didn’t much matter now! Into that coppice the moonlight would
have crept; there would be shadows, and those shadows would be
the only things awake. No birds, beasts, flowers, insects; Just
the shadows —moving; “Ladies in grey!” Over that log they would
climb; would whisper together. She and Bosinney! Funny thought!
And the frogs and little things would whisper too! How the clock
ticked, in here! It was all eerie—out there in the light of that
red moon; in here with the little steady night-light and, the
ticking clock and the nurse’s dressing-gown hanging from the edge
of the screen, tall, like a woman’s figure. “Lady in grey!” And a
very odd thought beset him: Did she exist? Had she ever come at
all? Or was she but the emanation of all the beauty he had loved
and must leave so soon? The violet-grey spirit with the dark eyes
and the crown of amber hair, who walks the dawn and the
moonlight, and at blue-bell time? What was she, who was she, did
she exist? He rose and stood a moment clutching the window-sill,
to give him a sense of reality again; then began tiptoeing
towards the door. He stopped at the foot of the bed; and Holly,
as if conscious of his eyes fixed on her, stirred, sighed, and
curled up closer in defence. He tiptoed on and passed out into
the dark passage; reached his room, undressed at once, and stood
before a mirror in his night-shirt. What a scarecrow—with temples
fallen in, and thin legs! His eyes resisted his own image, and a
look of pride came on his face. All was in league to pull him
down, even his reflection in the glass, but he was not down—yet!
He got into bed, and lay a long time without sleeping, trying to
reach resignation, only too well aware that fretting and
disappointment were very bad for him.

He woke in the morning so unrefreshed and strengthless that he
sent for the doctor. After sounding him, the fellow pulled a face
as long as your arm, and ordered him to stay in bed and give up
smoking. That was no hardship; there was nothing to get up for,
and when he felt ill, tobacco always lost its savour. He spent
the morning languidly with the sun-blinds down, turning and
re-turning _The Times_, not reading much, the dog Balthasar lying
beside his bed. With his lunch they brought him a telegram,
running thus:

“Your letter received coming down this afternoon will be with you
at four-thirty. Irene.”

Coming down! After all! Then she did exist—and he was not
deserted. Coming down! A glow ran through his limbs; his cheeks
and forehead felt hot. He drank his soup, and pushed the
tray-table away, lying very quiet until they had removed lunch
and left him alone; but every now and then his eyes twinkled.
Coming down! His heart beat fast, and then did not seem to beat
at all. At three o’clock he got up and dressed deliberately,
noiselessly. Holly and Mam’zelle would be in the schoolroom, and
the servants asleep after their dinner, he shouldn’t wonder. He
opened his door cautiously, and went downstairs. In the hall the
dog Balthasar lay solitary, and, followed by him, old Jolyon
passed into his study and out into the burning afternoon. He
meant to go down and meet her in the coppice, but felt at once he
could not manage that in this heat. He sat down instead under the
oak tree by the swing, and the dog Balthasar, who also felt the
heat, lay down beside him. He sat there smiling. What a revel of
bright minutes! What a hum of insects, and cooing of pigeons! It
was the quintessence of a summer day. Lovely! And he was
happy—happy as a sand-boy, whatever that might be. She was
coming; she had not given him up! He had everything in life he
wanted—except a little more breath, and less weight—just here! He
would see her when she emerged from the fernery, come swaying
just a little, a violet-grey figure passing over the daisies and
dandelions and “soldiers” on the lawn—the soldiers with their
flowery crowns. He would not move, but she would come up to him
and say: “Dear Uncle Jolyon, I am sorry!” and sit in the swing
and let him look at her and tell her that he had not been very
well but was all right now; and that dog would lick her hand.
That dog knew his master was fond of her; that dog was a good
dog.

It was quite shady under the tree; the sun could not get at him,
only make the rest of the world bright so that he could see the
Grand Stand at Epsom away out there, very far, and the cows
cropping the clover in the field and swishing at the flies with
their tails. He smelled the scent of limes, and lavender. Ah!
that was why there was such a racket of bees. They were
excited—busy, as his heart was busy and excited. Drowsy, too,
drowsy and drugged on honey and happiness; as his heart was
drugged and drowsy. Summer—summer—they seemed saying; great bees
and little bees, and the flies too!

The stable clock struck four; in half an hour she would be here.
He would have just one tiny nap, because he had had so little
sleep of late; and then he would be fresh for her, fresh for
youth and beauty, coming towards him across the sunlit lawn—lady
in grey! And settling back in his chair he closed his eyes. Some
thistle-down came on what little air there was, and pitched on
his moustache more white than itself. He did not know; but his
breathing stirred it, caught there. A ray of sunlight struck
through and lodged on his boot. A bumble-bee alighted and
strolled on the crown of his Panama hat. And the delicious surge
of slumber reached the brain beneath that hat, and the head
swayed forward and rested on his breast. Summer—summer! So went
the hum.

The stable clock struck the quarter past. The dog Balthasar
stretched and looked up at his master. The thistledown no longer
moved. The dog placed his chin over the sunlit foot. It did not
stir. The dog withdrew his chin quickly, rose, and leaped on old
Jolyon’s lap, looked in his face, whined; then, leaping down, sat
on his haunches, gazing up. And suddenly he uttered a long, long
howl.

But the thistledown was still as death, and the face of his old
master.

Summer—summer—summer! The soundless footsteps on the grass! 1917

IN CHANCERY

Two households both alike in dignity,
From ancient grudge, break into new mutiny.
—_Romeo and Juliet_

TO JESSIE AND JOSEPH CONRAD