Chapter XIV: HIS

He had much to see to, that night and all next day. A telegram at
breakfast reassured him about Annette, and he only caught the
last train back to Reading, with Emily’s kiss on his forehead and
in his ears her words:

“I don’t know what I should have done without you, my dear boy.”

He reached his house at midnight. The weather had changed, was
mild again, as though, having finished its work and sent a
Forsyte to his last account, it could relax. A second telegram,
received at dinner-time, had confirmed the good news of Annette,
and, instead of going in, Soames passed down through the garden
in the moonlight to his houseboat. He could sleep there quite
well. Bitterly tired, he lay down on the sofa in his fur coat and
fell asleep. He woke soon after dawn and went on deck. He stood
against the rail, looking west where the river swept round in a
wide curve under the woods. In Soames, appreciation of natural
beauty was curiously like that of his farmer ancestors, a sense
of grievance if it wasn’t there, sharpened, no doubt, and
civilised, by his researches among landscape painting. But dawn
has power to fertilise the most matter-of-fact vision, and he was
stirred. It was another world from the river he knew, under that
remote cool light; a world into which man had not entered, an
unreal world, like some strange shore sighted by discovery. Its
colour was not the colour of convention, was hardly colour at
all; its shapes were brooding yet distinct; its silence stunning;
it had no scent. Why it should move him he could not tell, unless
it were that he felt so alone in it, bare of all relationship and
all possessions. Into such a world his father might be voyaging,
for all resemblance it had to the world he had left. And Soames
took refuge from it in wondering what painter could have done it
justice. The white-grey water was like—like the belly of a fish!
Was it possible that this world on which he looked was all
private property, except the water—and even that was tapped! No
tree, no shrub, not a blade of grass, not a bird or beast, not
even a fish that was not owned. And once on a time all this was
jungle and marsh and water, and weird creatures roamed and
sported without human cognizance to give them names; rotting
luxuriance had rioted where those tall, carefully planted woods
came down to the water, and marsh-misted reeds on that far side
had covered all the pasture. Well! they had got it under,
kennelled it all up, labelled it, and stowed it in lawyers’
offices. And a good thing too! But once in a way, as now, the
ghost of the past came out to haunt and brood and whisper to any
human who chanced to be awake: “Out of my unowned loneliness you
all came, into it some day you will all return.”

And Soames, who felt the chill and the eeriness of that world—new
to him and so very old: the world, unowned, visiting the scene of
its past—went down and made himself tea on a spirit-lamp. When he
had drunk it, he took out writing materials and wrote two
paragraphs:

“On the 20th instant at his residence in Park Lane, James
Forsyte, in his ninety-first year. Funeral at noon on the 24th at
Highgate. No flowers by request.”

“On the 20th instant at The Shelter; Mapledurham, Annette, wife
of Soames Forsyte, of a daughter.” And underneath on the
blottingpaper he traced the word “son.”

It was eight o’clock in an ordinary autumn world when he went
across to the house. Bushes across the river stood round and
bright-coloured out of a milky haze; the wood-smoke went up blue
and straight; and his doves cooed, preening their feathers in the
sunlight.

He stole up to his dressing-room, bathed, shaved, put on fresh
linen and dark clothes.

Madame Lamotte was beginning her breakfast when he went down.

She looked at his clothes, said, “Don’t tell me!” and pressed his
hand. “Annette is prettee well. But the doctor say she can never
have no more children. You knew that?” Soames nodded. “It’s a
pity. _Mais la petite est adorable. Du café?_”

Soames got away from her as soon as he could. She offended
him—solid, matter-of-fact, quick, clear—_French_. He could not
bear her vowels, her “r’s”. he resented the way she had looked at
him, as if it were his fault that Annette could never bear him a
son! His fault! He even resented her cheap adoration of the
daughter he had not yet seen.

Curious how he jibbed away from sight of his wife and child!

One would have thought he must have rushed up at the first
moment. On the contrary, he had a sort of physical shrinking from
it—fastidious possessor that he was. He was afraid of what
Annette was thinking of him, author of her agonies, afraid of the
look of the baby, afraid of showing his disappointment with the
present and—the future.

He spent an hour walking up and down the drawing-room before he
could screw his courage up to mount the stairs and knock on the
door of their room.

Madame Lamotte opened it.

“Ah! At last you come! _Elle vous attend!_” She passed him, and
Soames went in with his noiseless step, his jaw firmly set, his
eyes furtive.

Annette was very pale and very pretty lying there. The baby was
hidden away somewhere; he could not see it. He went up to the
bed, and with sudden emotion bent and kissed her forehead.

“Here you are then, Soames,” she said. “I am not so bad now. But
I suffered terribly, terribly. I am glad I cannot have any more.
Oh! how I suffered!”

Soames stood silent, stroking her hand; words of endearment, of
sympathy, absolutely would not come; the thought passed through
him: “An English girl wouldn’t have said that!” At this moment he
knew with certainty that he would never be near to her in spirit
and in truth, nor she to him. He had collected her—that was all!
And Jolyon’s words came rushing into his mind: “I should imagine
you will be glad to have your neck out of chancery.” Well, he had
got it out! Had he got it in again?

“We must feed you up,” he said, “you’ll soon be strong.”

“Don’t you want to see baby, Soames? She is asleep.”

“Of course,” said Soames, “very much.”

He passed round the foot of the bed to the other side and stood
staring. For the first moment what he saw was much what he had
expected to see—a baby. But as he stared and the baby breathed
and made little sleeping movements with its tiny features, it
seemed to assume an individual shape, grew to be like a picture,
a thing he would know again; not repulsive, strangely bud-like
and touching. It had dark hair. He touched it with his finger, he
wanted to see its eyes. They opened, they were dark—whether blue
or brown he could not tell. The eyes winked, stared, they had a
sort of sleepy depth in them. And suddenly his heart felt queer,
warm, as if elated.

“_Ma petite fleur!_” Annette said softly.

“Fleur,” repeated Soames: “Fleur! we’ll call her that.”

The sense of triumph and renewed possession swelled within him.

By God! this—this thing was his! By God! this—this thing was
_his!_

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THE FORSYTE SAGA—VOLUME III.

By John Galsworthy

AWAKENING

TO CHARLES SCRIBNER

AWAKENING

Through the massive skylight illuminating the hall at Robin Hill,
the July sunlight at five o'clock fell just where the broad
stairway turned; and in that radiant streak little Jon Forsyte
stood, blue-linen-suited. His hair was shining, and his eyes,
from beneath a frown, for he was considering how to go
downstairs, this last of innumerable times, before the car
brought his father and mother home. Four at a time, and five at
the bottom? Stale! Down the banisters? But in which fashion? On
his face, feet foremost? Very stale. On his stomach, sideways?
Paltry! On his back, with his arms stretched down on both sides?
Forbidden! Or on his face, head foremost, in a manner unknown as
yet to any but himself? Such was the cause of the frown on the
illuminated face of little Jon....

In that Summer of 1909 the simple souls who even then desired to
simplify the English tongue, had, of course, no cognizance of
little Jon, or they would have claimed him for a disciple. But
one can be too simple in this life, for his real name was Jolyon,
and his living father and dead half-brother had usurped of old
the other shortenings, Jo and Jolly. As a fact little Jon had
done his best to conform to convention and spell himself first
Jhon, then John; not till his father had explained the sheer
necessity, had he spelled his name Jon.

Up till now that father had possessed what was left of his heart
by the groom, Bob, who played the concertina, and his nurse “Da,”
who wore the violet dress on Sundays, and enjoyed the name of
Spraggins in that private life lived at odd moments even by
domestic servants. His mother had only appeared to him, as it
were in dreams, smelling delicious, smoothing his forehead just
before he fell asleep, and sometimes docking his hair, of a
golden brown colour. When he cut his head open against the
nursery fender she was there to be bled over; and when he had
nightmare she would sit on his bed and cuddle his head against
her neck. She was precious but remote, because “Da” was so near,
and there is hardly room for more than one woman at a time in a
man's heart. With his father, too, of course, he had special
bonds of union; for little Jon also meant to be a painter when he
grew up—with the one small difference, that his father painted
pictures, and little Jon intended to paint ceilings and walls,
standing on a board between two step-ladders, in a dirty-white
apron, and a lovely smell of whitewash. His father also took him
riding in Richmond Park, on his pony, Mouse, so-called because it
was so-coloured.

Little Jon had been born with a silver spoon in a mouth which was
rather curly and large. He had never heard his father or his
mother speak in an angry voice, either to each other, himself, or
anybody else; the groom, Bob, Cook, Jane, Bella and the other
servants, even “Da,” who alone restrained him in his courses, had
special voices when they talked to him. He was therefore of
opinion that the world was a place of perfect and perpetual
gentility and freedom.

A child of 1901, he had come to consciousness when his country,
just over that bad attack of scarlet fever, the Boer War, was
preparing for the Liberal revival of 1906. Coercion was
unpopular, parents had exalted notions of giving their offspring
a good time. They spoiled their rods, spared their children, and
anticipated the results with enthusiasm. In choosing, moreover,
for his father an amiable man of fifty-two, who had already lost
an only son, and for his mother a woman of thirty-eight, whose
first and only child he was, little Jon had done well and wisely.
What had saved him from becoming a cross between a lap dog and a
little prig, had been his father's adoration of his mother, for
even little Jon could see that she was not merely just his
mother, and that he played second fiddle to her in his father's
heart: What he played in his mother's heart he knew not yet. As
for “Auntie” June, his half-sister (but so old that she had grown
out of the relationship) she loved him, of course, but was too
sudden. His devoted “Da,” too, had a Spartan touch. His bath was
cold and his knees were bare; he was not encouraged to be sorry
for himself. As to the vexed question of his education, little
Jon shared the theory of those who considered that children
should not be forced. He rather liked the Mademoiselle who came
for two hours every morning to teach him her language, together
with history, geography and sums; nor were the piano lessons
which his mother gave him disagreeable, for she had a way of
luring him from tune to tune, never making him practise one which
did not give him pleasure, so that he remained eager to convert
ten thumbs into eight fingers. Under his father he learned to
draw pleasure-pigs and other animals. He was not a highly
educated little boy. Yet, on the whole, the silver spoon stayed
in his mouth without spoiling it, though “Da” sometimes said that
other children would do him a “world of good.”

It was a disillusionment, then, when at the age of nearly seven
she held him down on his back, because he wanted to do something
of which she did not approve. This first interference with the
free individualism of a Forsyte drove him almost frantic. There
was something appalling in the utter helplessness of that
position, and the uncertainty as to whether it would ever come to
an end. Suppose she never let him get up any more! He suffered
torture at the top of his voice for fifty seconds. Worse than
anything was his perception that “Da” had taken all that time to
realise the agony of fear he was enduring. Thus, dreadfully, was
revealed to him the lack of imagination in the human being.

When he was let up he remained convinced that “Da” had done a
dreadful thing. Though he did not wish to bear witness against
her, he had been compelled, by fear of repetition, to seek his
mother and say: “Mum, don't let 'Da' hold me down on my back
again.”

His mother, her hands held up over her head, and in them two
plaits of hair—“couleur de feuille morte,” as little Jon had not
yet learned to call it—had looked at him with eyes like little
bits of his brown velvet tunic, and answered:

“No, darling, I won't.”

She, being in the nature of a goddess, little Jon was satisfied;
especially when, from under the dining-table at breakfast, where
he happened to be waiting for a mushroom, he had overheard her
say to his father:

“Then, will you tell 'Da,' dear, or shall I? She's so devoted to
him”; and his father's answer:

“Well, she mustn't show it that way. I know exactly what it feels
like to be held down on one's back. No Forsyte can stand it for a
minute.”

Conscious that they did not know him to be under the table,
little Jon was visited by the quite new feeling of embarrassment,
and stayed where he was, ravaged by desire for the mushroom.

Such had been his first dip into the dark abysses of existence.
Nothing much had been revealed to him after that, till one day,
having gone down to the cow-house for his drink of milk fresh
from the cow, after Garratt had finished milking, he had seen
Clover's calf, dead. Inconsolable, and followed by an upset
Garratt, he had sought “Da”; but suddenly aware that she was not
the person he wanted, had rushed away to find his father, and had
run into the arms of his mother.

“Clover's calf's dead! Oh! Oh! It looked so soft!”

His mother's clasp, and her:

“Yes, darling, there, there!” had stayed his sobbing. But if
Clover's calf could die, anything could—not only bees, flies,
beetles and chickens—and look soft like that! This was
appalling—and soon forgotten!

The next thing had been to sit on a bumble bee, a poignant
experience, which his mother had understood much better than
“Da”; and nothing of vital importance had happened after that
till the year turned; when, following a day of utter
wretchedness, he had enjoyed a disease composed of little spots,
bed, honey in a spoon, and many Tangerine oranges. It was then
that the world had flowered. To “Auntie” June he owed that
flowering, for no sooner was he a little lame duck than she came
rushing down from London, bringing with her the books which had
nurtured her own Berserker spirit, born in the noted year of
1869. Aged, and of many colours, they were stored with the most
formidable happenings. Of these she read to little Jon, till he
was allowed to read to himself; whereupon she whisked back to
London and left them with him in a heap. Those books cooked his
fancy, till he thought and dreamed of nothing but midshipmen and
dhows, pirates, rafts, sandal-wood traders, iron horses, sharks,
battles, Tartars, Red Indians, balloons, North Poles and other
extravagant delights. The moment he was suffered to get up, he
rigged his bed fore and aft, and set out from it in a narrow bath
across green seas of carpet, to a rock, which he climbed by means
of its mahogany drawer knobs, to sweep the horizon with his
drinking tumbler screwed to his eye, in search of rescuing sails.
He made a daily raft out of the towel stand, the tea tray, and
his pillows. He saved the juice from his French plums, bottled it
in an empty medicine bottle, and provisioned the raft with the
rum that it became; also with pemmican made out of little
saved-up bits of chicken sat on and dried at the fire; and with
lime juice against scurvy, extracted from the peel of his oranges
and a little economised juice. He made a North Pole one morning
from the whole of his bedclothes except the bolster, and reached
it in a birch-bark canoe (in private life the fender), after a
terrible encounter with a polar bear fashioned from the bolster
and four skittles dressed up in “Da's” nightgown. After that, his
father, seeking to steady his imagination, brought him Ivanhoe,
Bevis, a book about King Arthur, and Tom Brown's Schooldays. He
read the first, and for three days built, defended and stormed
Front de Boeuf's castle, taking every part in the piece except
those of Rebecca and Rowena; with piercing cries of: “En avant,
de Bracy!” and similar utterances. After reading the book about
King Arthur he became almost exclusively Sir Lamorac de Galis,
because, though there was very little about him, he preferred his
name to that of any other knight; and he rode his old
rocking-horse to death, armed with a long bamboo. Bevis he found
tame; besides, it required woods and animals, of which he had
none in his nursery, except his two cats, Fitz and Puck Forsyte,
who permitted no liberties. For Tom Brown he was as yet too
young. There was relief in the house when, after the fourth week,
he was permitted to go down and out.

The month being March the trees were exceptionally like the masts
of ships, and for little Jon that was a wonderful Spring,
extremely hard on his knees, suits, and the patience of “Da,” who
had the washing and reparation of his clothes. Every morning the
moment his breakfast was over, he could be viewed by his mother
and father, whose windows looked out that way, coming from the
study, crossing the terrace, climbing the old oak tree, his face
resolute and his hair bright. He began the day thus because there
was not time to go far afield before his lessons. The old tree's
variety never staled; it had mainmast, foremast, top-gallant
mast, and he could always come down by the halyards—or ropes of
the swing. After his lessons, completed by eleven, he would go to
the kitchen for a thin piece of cheese, a biscuit and two French
plums—provision enough for a jolly-boat at least—and eat it in
some imaginative way; then, armed to the teeth with gun, pistols,
and sword, he would begin the serious climbing of the morning,
encountering by the way innumerable slavers, Indians, pirates,
leopards, and bears. He was seldom seen at that hour of the day
without a cutlass in his teeth (like Dick Needham) amid the rapid
explosion of copper caps. And many were the gardeners he brought
down with yellow peas shot out of his little gun. He lived a life
of the most violent action.

“Jon,” said his father to his mother, under the oak tree, “is
terrible. I'm afraid he's going to turn out a sailor, or
something hopeless. Do you see any sign of his appreciating
beauty?”

“Not the faintest.”

“Well, thank heaven he's no turn for wheels or engines! I can
bear anything but that. But I wish he'd take more interest in
Nature.”

“He's imaginative, Jolyon.”

“Yes, in a sanguinary way. Does he love anyone just now?”

“No; only everyone. There never was anyone born more loving or
more lovable than Jon.”

“Being your boy, Irene.”

At this moment little Jon, lying along a branch high above them,
brought them down with two peas; but that fragment of talk
lodged, thick, in his small gizzard. Loving, lovable,
imaginative, sanguinary!

The leaves also were thick by now, and it was time for his
birthday, which, occurring every year on the twelfth of May, was
always memorable for his chosen dinner of sweetbread, mushrooms,
macaroons, and ginger beer.

Between that eighth birthday, however, and the afternoon when he
stood in the July radiance at the turning of the stairway,
several important things had happened.

“Da,” worn out by washing his knees, or moved by that mysterious
instinct which forces even nurses to desert their nurslings, left
the very day after his birthday in floods of tears “to be
married”—of all things—“to a man.” Little Jon, from whom it had
been kept, was inconsolable for an afternoon. It ought not to
have been kept from him! Two large boxes of soldiers and some
artillery, together with The Young Buglers, which had been among
his birthday presents, cooperated with his grief in a sort of
conversion, and instead of seeking adventures in person and
risking his own life, he began to play imaginative games, in
which he risked the lives of countless tin soldiers, marbles,
stones and beans. Of these forms of “chair a canon” he made
collections, and, using them alternately, fought the Peninsular,
the Seven Years, the Thirty Years, and other wars, about which he
had been reading of late in a big History of Europe which had
been his grandfather's. He altered them to suit his genius, and
fought them all over the floor in his day nursery, so that nobody
could come in, for fearing of disturbing Gustavus Adolphus, King
of Sweden, or treading on an army of Austrians. Because of the
sound of the word he was passionately addicted to the Austrians,
and finding there were so few battles in which they were
successful he had to invent them in his games. His favourite
generals were Prince Eugene, the Archduke Charles and
Wallenstein. Tilly and Mack (“music-hall turns” he heard his
father call them one day, whatever that might mean) one really
could not love very much, Austrian though they were. For euphonic
reasons, too, he doted on Turenne.

This phase, which caused his parents anxiety, because it kept him
indoors when he ought to have been out, lasted through May and
half of June, till his father killed it by bringing home to him
Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn. When he read those books
something happened in him, and he went out of doors again in
passionate quest of a river. There being none on the premises at
Robin Hill, he had to make one out of the pond, which fortunately
had water lilies, dragonflies, gnats, bullrushes, and three small
willow trees. On this pond, after his father and Garratt had
ascertained by sounding that it had a reliable bottom and was
nowhere more than two feet deep, he was allowed a little
collapsible canoe, in which he spent hours and hours paddling,
and lying down out of sight of Indian Joe and other enemies. On
the shore of the pond, too, he built himself a wigwam about four
feet square, of old biscuit tins, roofed in by boughs. In this he
would make little fires, and cook the birds he had not shot with
his gun, hunting in the coppice and fields, or the fish he did
not catch in the pond because there were none. This occupied the
rest of June and that July, when his father and mother were away
in Ireland. He led a lonely life of “make believe” during those
five weeks of summer weather, with gun, wigwam, water and canoe;
and, however hard his active little brain tried to keep the sense
of beauty away, she did creep in on him for a second now and
then, perching on the wing of a dragon-fly, glistening on the
water lilies, or brushing his eyes with her blue as he lay on his
back in ambush.

“Auntie” June, who had been left in charge, had a “grown-up” in
the house, with a cough and a large piece of putty which he was
making into a face; so she hardly ever came down to see him in
the pond. Once, however, she brought with her two other
“grown-ups.” Little Jon, who happened to have painted his naked
self bright blue and yellow in stripes out of his father's
water-colour box, and put some duck's feathers in his hair, saw
them coming, and—ambushed himself among the willows. As he had
foreseen, they came at once to his wigwam and knelt down to look
inside, so that with a blood-curdling yell he was able to take
the scalps of “Auntie” June and the woman “grown-up” in an almost
complete manner before they kissed him. The names of the two
grown-ups were “Auntie” Holly and “Uncle” Val, who had a brown
face and a little limp, and laughed at him terribly. He took a
fancy to “Auntie” Holly, who seemed to be a sister too; but they
both went away the same afternoon and he did not see them again.
Three days before his father and mother were to come home
“Auntie” June also went off in a great hurry, taking the
“grown-up” who coughed and his piece of putty; and Mademoiselle
said: “Poor man, he was veree ill. I forbid you to go into his
room, Jon.” Little Jon, who rarely did things merely because he
was told not to, refrained from going, though he was bored and
lonely. In truth the day of the pond was past, and he was filled
to the brim of his soul with restlessness and the want of
something—not a tree, not a gun—something soft. Those last two
days had seemed months in spite of Cast Up by the Sea, wherein he
was reading about Mother Lee and her terrible wrecking bonfire.
He had gone up and down the stairs perhaps a hundred times in
those two days, and often from the day nursery, where he slept
now, had stolen into his mother's room, looked at everything,
without touching, and on into the dressing-room; and standing on
one leg beside the bath, like Slingsby, had whispered:

“Ho, ho, ho! Dog my cats!” mysteriously, to bring luck. Then,
stealing back, he had opened his mother's wardrobe, and taken a
long sniff which seemed to bring him nearer to—he didn't know
what.

He had done this just before he stood in the streak of sunlight,
debating in which of the several ways he should slide down the
banisters. They all seemed silly, and in a sudden languor he
began descending the steps one by one. During that descent he
could remember his father quite distinctly—the short grey beard,
the deep eyes twinkling, the furrow between them, the funny
smile, the thin figure which always seemed so tall to little Jon;
but his mother he couldn't see. All that represented her was
something swaying with two dark eyes looking back at him; and the
scent of her wardrobe.

Bella was in the hall, drawing aside the big curtains, and
opening the front door. Little Jon said, wheedling,

“Bella!”

“Yes, Master Jon.”

“Do let's have tea under the oak tree when they come; I know
they'd like it best.”

“You mean you'd like it best.”

Little Jon considered.

“No, they would, to please me.”

Bella smiled. “Very well, I'll take it out if you'll stay quiet
here and not get into mischief before they come.”

Little Jon sat down on the bottom step, and nodded. Bella came
close, and looked him over.

“Get up!” she said.

Little Jon got up. She scrutinized him behind; he was not green,
and his knees seemed clean.

“All right!” she said. “My! Aren't you brown? Give me a kiss!”

And little Jon received a peck on his hair.

“What jam?” he asked. “I'm so tired of waiting.”

“Gooseberry and strawberry.”

Num! They were his favourites!

When she was gone he sat still for quite a minute. It was quiet
in the big hall open to its East end so that he could see one of
his trees, a brig sailing very slowly across the upper lawn. In
the outer hall shadows were slanting from the pillars. Little Jon
got up, jumped one of them, and walked round the clump of iris
plants which filled the pool of grey-white marble in the centre.
The flowers were pretty, but only smelled a very little. He stood
in the open doorway and looked out. Suppose!—suppose they didn't
come! He had waited so long that he felt he could not bear that,
and his attention slid at once from such finality to the dust
motes in the bluish sunlight coming in: Thrusting his hand up, he
tried to catch some. Bella ought to have dusted that piece of
air! But perhaps they weren't dust—only what sunlight was made
of, and he looked to see whether the sunlight out of doors was
the same. It was not. He had said he would stay quiet in the
hall, but he simply couldn't any more; and crossing the gravel of
the drive he lay down on the grass beyond. Pulling six daisies he
named them carefully, Sir Lamorac, Sir Tristram, Sir Lancelot,
Sir Palimedes, Sir Bors, Sir Gawain, and fought them in couples
till only Sir Lamorac, whom he had selected for a specially stout
stalk, had his head on, and even he, after three encounters,
looked worn and waggly. A beetle was moving slowly in the grass,
which almost wanted cutting. Every blade was a small tree, round
whose trunk the beetle had to glide. Little Jon stretched out Sir
Lamorac, feet foremost, and stirred the creature up. It scuttled
painfully. Little Jon laughed, lost interest, and sighed. His
heart felt empty. He turned over and lay on his back. There was a
scent of honey from the lime trees in flower, and in the sky the
blue was beautiful, with a few white clouds which looked and
perhaps tasted like lemon ice. He could hear Bob playing: “Way
down upon de Suwannee ribber” on his concertina, and it made him
nice and sad. He turned over again and put his ear to the
ground—Indians could hear things coming ever so far—but he could
hear nothing—only the concertina! And almost instantly he did
hear a grinding sound, a faint toot. Yes! it was a
car—coming—coming! Up he jumped. Should he wait in the porch, or
rush upstairs, and as they came in, shout: “Look!” and slide
slowly down the banisters, head foremost? Should he? The car
turned in at the drive. It was too late! And he only waited,
jumping up and down in his excitement. The car came quickly,
whirred, and stopped. His father got out, exactly like life. He
bent down and little Jon bobbed up—they bumped. His father said,

“Bless us! Well, old man, you are brown!” Just as he would; and
the sense of expectation—of something wanted—bubbled
unextinguished in little Jon. Then, with a long, shy look he saw
his mother, in a blue dress, with a blue motor scarf over her cap
and hair, smiling. He jumped as high as ever he could, twined his
legs behind her back, and hugged. He heard her gasp, and felt her
hugging back. His eyes, very dark blue just then, looked into
hers, very dark brown, till her lips closed on his eyebrow, and,
squeezing with all his might, he heard her creak and laugh, and
say:

“You are strong, Jon!”

He slid down at that, and rushed into the hall, dragging her by
the hand.

While he was eating his jam beneath the oak tree, he noticed
things about his mother that he had never seemed to see before,
her cheeks for instance were creamy, there were silver threads in
her dark goldy hair, her throat had no knob in it like Bella's,
and she went in and out softly. He noticed, too, some little
lines running away from the corners of her eyes, and a nice
darkness under them. She was ever so beautiful, more beautiful
than “Da” or Mademoiselle, or “Auntie” June or even “Auntie”
Holly, to whom he had taken a fancy; even more beautiful than
Bella, who had pink cheeks and came out too suddenly in places.
This new beautifulness of his mother had a kind of particular
importance, and he ate less than he had expected to.

When tea was over his father wanted him to walk round the
gardens. He had a long conversation with his father about things
in general, avoiding his private life—Sir Lamorac, the Austrians,
and the emptiness he had felt these last three days, now so
suddenly filled up. His father told him of a place called
Glensofantrim, where he and his mother had been; and of the
little people who came out of the ground there when it was very
quiet. Little Jon came to a halt, with his heels apart.

“Do you really believe they do, Daddy?” “No, Jon, but I thought
you might.”

“Why?”

“You're younger than I; and they're fairies.” Little Jon squared
the dimple in his chin.

“I don't believe in fairies. I never see any.” “Ha!” said his
father.

“Does Mum?”

His father smiled his funny smile.

“No; she only sees Pan.”

“What's Pan?”

“The Goaty God who skips about in wild and beautiful places.”

“Was he in Glensofantrim?”

“Mum said so.”

Little Jon took his heels up, and led on.

“Did you see him?”

“No; I only saw Venus Anadyomene.”

Little Jon reflected; Venus was in his book about the Greeks and
Trojans. Then Anna was her Christian and Dyomene her surname?

But it appeared, on inquiry, that it was one word, which meant
rising from the foam.

“Did she rise from the foam in Glensofantrim?”

“Yes; every day.”

“What is she like, Daddy?”

“Like Mum.”

“Oh! Then she must be...” but he stopped at that, rushed at a
wall, scrambled up, and promptly scrambled down again. The
discovery that his mother was beautiful was one which he felt
must absolutely be kept to himself. His father's cigar, however,
took so long to smoke, that at last he was compelled to say:

“I want to see what Mum's brought home. Do you mind, Daddy?”

He pitched the motive low, to absolve him from unmanliness, and
was a little disconcerted when his father looked at him right
through, heaved an important sigh, and answered:

“All right, old man, you go and love her.”

He went, with a pretence of slowness, and then rushed, to make
up. He entered her bedroom from his own, the door being open. She
was still kneeling before a trunk, and he stood close to her,
quite still.

She knelt up straight, and said:

“Well, Jon?”

“I thought I'd just come and see.”

Having given and received another hug, he mounted the
window-seat, and tucking his legs up under him watched her
unpack. He derived a pleasure from the operation such as he had
not yet known, partly because she was taking out things which
looked suspicious, and partly because he liked to look at her.
She moved differently from anybody else, especially from Bella;
she was certainly the refinedest-looking person he had ever seen.
She finished the trunk at last, and knelt down in front of him.

“Have you missed us, Jon?”

Little Jon nodded, and having thus admitted his feelings,
continued to nod.

“But you had 'Auntie' June?”

“Oh! she had a man with a cough.”

His mother's face changed, and looked almost angry. He added
hastily:

“He was a poor man, Mum; he coughed awfully; I—I liked him.”

His mother put her hands behind his waist.

“You like everybody, Jon?”

Little Jon considered.

“Up to a point,” he said: “Auntie June took me to church one
Sunday.”

“To church? Oh!”

“She wanted to see how it would affect me.” “And did it?”

“Yes. I came over all funny, so she took me home again very
quick. I wasn't sick after all. I went to bed and had hot brandy
and water, and read The Boys of Beechwood. It was scrumptious.”

His mother bit her lip.

“When was that?”

“Oh! about—a long time ago—I wanted her to take me again, but she
wouldn't. You and Daddy never go to church, do you?”

“No, we don't.”

“Why don't you?”

His mother smiled.

“Well, dear, we both of us went when we were little. Perhaps we
went when we were too little.”

“I see,” said little Jon, “it's dangerous.”

“You shall judge for yourself about all those things as you grow
up.”

Little Jon replied in a calculating manner:

“I don't want to grow up, much. I don't want to go to school.” A
sudden overwhelming desire to say something more, to say what he
really felt, turned him red. “I—I want to stay with you, and be
your lover, Mum.”

Then with an instinct to improve the situation, he added quickly
“I don't want to go to bed to-night, either. I'm simply tired of
going to bed, every night.”

“Have you had any more nightmares?”

“Only about one. May I leave the door open into your room
to-night, Mum?”

“Yes, just a little.” Little Jon heaved a sigh of satisfaction.

“What did you see in Glensofantrim?”

“Nothing but beauty, darling.”

“What exactly is beauty?”

“What exactly is—Oh! Jon, that's a poser.”

“Can I see it, for instance?” His mother got up, and sat beside
him. “You do, every day. The sky is beautiful, the stars, and
moonlit nights, and then the birds, the flowers, the
trees—they're all beautiful. Look out of the window—there's
beauty for you, Jon.”

“Oh! yes, that's the view. Is that all?”

“All? no. The sea is wonderfully beautiful, and the waves, with
their foam flying back.”

“Did you rise from it every day, Mum?”

His mother smiled. “Well, we bathed.”

Little Jon suddenly reached out and caught her neck in his hands.

“I know,” he said mysteriously, “you're it, really, and all the
rest is make-believe.”

She sighed, laughed, said: “Oh! Jon!”

Little Jon said critically:

“Do you think Bella beautiful, for instance? I hardly do.”

“Bella is young; that's something.”

“But you look younger, Mum. If you bump against Bella she hurts.”

“I don't believe 'Da' was beautiful, when I come to think of it;
and Mademoiselle's almost ugly.”

“Mademoiselle has a very nice face.” “Oh! yes; nice. I love your
little rays, Mum.”

“Rays?”

Little Jon put his finger to the outer corner of her eye.

“Oh! Those? But they're a sign of age.”

“They come when you smile.”

“But they usen't to.”

“Oh! well, I like them. Do you love me, Mum?”

“I do—I do love you, darling.”

“Ever so?”

“Ever so!”

“More than I thought you did?”

“Much—much more.”

“Well, so do I; so that makes it even.”

Conscious that he had never in his life so given himself away, he
felt a sudden reaction to the manliness of Sir Lamorac, Dick
Needham, Huck Finn, and other heroes.

“Shall I show you a thing or two?” he said; and slipping out of
her arms, he stood on his head. Then, fired by her obvious
admiration, he mounted the bed, and threw himself head foremost
from his feet on to his back, without touching anything with his
hands. He did this several times.

That evening, having inspected what they had brought, he stayed
up to dinner, sitting between them at the little round table they
used when they were alone. He was extremely excited. His mother
wore a French-grey dress, with creamy lace made out of little
scriggly roses, round her neck, which was browner than the lace.
He kept looking at her, till at last his father's funny smile
made him suddenly attentive to his slice of pineapple. It was
later than he had ever stayed up, when he went to bed. His mother
went up with him, and he undressed very slowly so as to keep her
there. When at last he had nothing on but his pyjamas, he said:

“Promise you won't go while I say my prayers!”

“I promise.”

Kneeling down and plunging his face into the bed, little Jon
hurried up, under his breath, opening one eye now and then, to
see her standing perfectly still with a smile on her face. “Our
Father”—so went his last prayer, “which art in heaven, hallowed
be thy Mum, thy Kingdom Mum—on Earth as it is in heaven, give us
this day our daily Mum and forgive us our trespasses on earth as
it is in heaven and trespass against us, for thine is the evil
the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amum! Look out!” He
sprang, and for a long minute remained in her arms. Once in bed,
he continued to hold her hand.

“You won't shut the door any more than that, will you? Are you
going to be long, Mum?”

“I must go down and play to Daddy.”

“Oh! well, I shall hear you.”

“I hope not; you must go to sleep.”

“I can sleep any night.”

“Well, this is just a night like any other.”

“Oh! no—it's extra special.”

“On extra special nights one always sleeps soundest.”

“But if I go to sleep, Mum, I shan't hear you come up.”

“Well, when I do, I'll come in and give you a kiss, then if
you're awake you'll know, and if you're not you'll still know
you've had one.”

Little Jon sighed, “All right!” he said: “I suppose I must put up
with that. Mum?”

“Yes?”

“What was her name that Daddy believes in? Venus Anna Diomedes?”

“Oh! my angel! Anadyomene.”

“Yes! but I like my name for you much better.”

“What is yours, Jon?”

Little Jon answered shyly:

“Guinevere! it's out of the Round Table—I've only just thought of
it, only of course her hair was down.”

His mother's eyes, looking past him, seemed to float.

“You won't forget to come, Mum?”

“Not if you'll go to sleep.”

“That's a bargain, then.” And little Jon screwed up his eyes.

He felt her lips on his forehead, heard her footsteps; opened his
eyes to see her gliding through the doorway, and, sighing,
screwed them up again.

Then Time began.

For some ten minutes of it he tried loyally to sleep, counting a
great number of thistles in a row, “Da's” old recipe for bringing
slumber. He seemed to have been hours counting. It must, he
thought, be nearly time for her to come up now. He threw the
bedclothes back. “I'm hot!” he said, and his voice sounded funny
in the darkness, like someone else's. Why didn't she come? He sat
up. He must look! He got out of bed, went to the window and
pulled the curtain a slice aside. It wasn't dark, but he couldn't
tell whether because of daylight or the moon, which was very big.
It had a funny, wicked face, as if laughing at him, and he did
not want to look at it. Then, remembering that his mother had
said moonlit nights were beautiful, he continued to stare out in
a general way. The trees threw thick shadows, the lawn looked
like spilt milk, and a long, long way he could see; oh! very far;
right over the world, and it all looked different and swimmy.
There was a lovely smell, too, in his open window.

'I wish I had a dove like Noah!' he thought.

“The moony moon was round and bright, It shone and shone and made
it light.”

After that rhyme, which came into his head all at once, he became
conscious of music, very soft-lovely! Mum playing! He bethought
himself of a macaroon he had, laid up in his chest of drawers,
and, getting it, came back to the window. He leaned out, now
munching, now holding his jaws to hear the music better. “Da”
used to say that angels played on harps in heaven; but it wasn't
half so lovely as Mum playing in the moony night, with him eating
a macaroon. A cockchafer buzzed by, a moth flew in his face, the
music stopped, and little Jon drew his head in. She must be
coming! He didn't want to be found awake. He got back into bed
and pulled the clothes nearly over his head; but he had left a
streak of moonlight coming in. It fell across the floor, near the
foot of the bed, and he watched it moving ever so slowly towards
him, as if it were alive. The music began again, but he could
only just hear it now; sleepy music,
pretty—sleepy—music—sleepy—slee.....

And time slipped by, the music rose, fell, ceased; the moonbeam
crept towards his face. Little Jon turned in his sleep till he
lay on his back, with one brown fist still grasping the
bedclothes. The corners of his eyes twitched—he had begun to
dream. He dreamed he was drinking milk out of a pan that was the
moon, opposite a great black cat which watched him with a funny
smile like his father's. He heard it whisper: “Don't drink too
much!” It was the cat's milk, of course, and he put out his hand
amicably to stroke the creature; but it was no longer there; the
pan had become a bed, in which he was lying, and when he tried to
get out he couldn't find the edge; he couldn't find
it—he—he—couldn't get out! It was dreadful!

He whimpered in his sleep. The bed had begun to go round too; it
was outside him and inside him; going round and round, and
getting fiery, and Mother Lee out of Cast up by the Sea was
stirring it! Oh! so horrible she looked! Faster and faster!—till
he and the bed and Mother Lee and the moon and the cat were all
one wheel going round and round and up and up—awful—awful—awful!

He shrieked.

A voice saying: “Darling, darling!” got through the wheel, and he
awoke, standing on his bed, with his eyes wide open.

There was his mother, with her hair like Guinevere's, and,
clutching her, he buried his face in it.

“Oh! oh!”

“It's all right, treasure. You're awake now. There! There! It's
nothing!”

But little Jon continued to say: “Oh! oh!”

Her voice went on, velvety in his ear:

“It was the moonlight, sweetheart, coming on your face.”

Little Jon burbled into her nightgown

“You said it was beautiful. Oh!”

“Not to sleep in, Jon. Who let it in? Did you draw the curtains?”

“I wanted to see the time; I—I looked out, I—I heard you playing,
Mum; I—I ate my macaroon.” But he was growing slowly comforted;
and the instinct to excuse his fear revived within him.

“Mother Lee went round in me and got all fiery,” he mumbled.

“Well, Jon, what can you expect if you eat macaroons after you've
gone to bed?”

“Only one, Mum; it made the music ever so more beautiful. I was
waiting for you—I nearly thought it was to-morrow.”

“My ducky, it's only just eleven now.”

Little Jon was silent, rubbing his nose on her neck.

“Mum, is Daddy in your room?”

“Not to-night.”

“Can I come?”

“If you wish, my precious.”

Half himself again, little Jon drew back.

“You look different, Mum; ever so younger.”

“It's my hair, darling.”

Little Jon laid hold of it, thick, dark gold, with a few silver
threads.

“I like it,” he said: “I like you best of all like this.”

Taking her hand, he had begun dragging her towards the door. He
shut it as they passed, with a sigh of relief.

“Which side of the bed do you like, Mum?”

“The left side.”

“All right.”

Wasting no time, giving her no chance to change her mind, little
Jon got into the bed, which seemed much softer than his own. He
heaved another sigh, screwed his head into the pillow and lay
examining the battle of chariots and swords and spears which
always went on outside blankets, where the little hairs stood up
against the light.

“It wasn't anything, really, was it?” he said.

From before her glass his mother answered:

“Nothing but the moon and your imagination heated up. You mustn't
get so excited, Jon.”

But, still not quite in possession of his nerves, little Jon
answered boastfully:

“I wasn't afraid, really, of course!” And again he lay watching
the spears and chariots. It all seemed very long.

“Oh! Mum, do hurry up!”

“Darling, I have to plait my hair.”

“Oh! not to-night. You'll only have to unplait it again
to-morrow. I'm sleepy now; if you don't come, I shan't be sleepy
soon.”

His mother stood up white and flowey before the winged mirror: he
could see three of her, with her neck turned and her hair bright
under the light, and her dark eyes smiling. It was unnecessary,
and he said:

“Do come, Mum; I'm waiting.”

“Very well, my love, I'll come.”

Little Jon closed his eyes. Everything was turning out most
satisfactory, only she must hurry up! He felt the bed shake, she
was getting in. And, still with his eyes closed, he said
sleepily: “It's nice, isn't it?”

He heard her voice say something, felt her lips touching his
nose, and, snuggling up beside her who lay awake and loved him
with her thoughts, he fell into the dreamless sleep, which
rounded off his past.

TO LET
“From out the fatal loins of those two foes A pair of star-crossed
lovers take their life.” —Romeo and Juliet.
TO CHARLES SCRIBNER