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Файл:The Forsyte Saga. Awakening & To Let. Volume III
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CHAPTER VIII
IDYLL ON GRASS
When those two young Forsytes emerged from the chine
lane, and set their faces east toward the sun, there was not
a cloud in heaven, and the Downs were dewy. They had come
at a good bat up the slope and were a little out of breath; if
they had anything to say they did not say it, but marched in
the early awkwardness of unbreakfasted morning under the
songs of the larks. The stealing out had been fun, but with the
freedom of the tops the sense of conspiracy ceased, and gave
place to dumbness.
"We've made one blooming error," said Fleur, when they
had gone half a mile. "I'm hungry."
Jon produced a stick of chocolate. They shared it and their
tongues were loosened. They discussed the nature of their
homes and previous existences, which had a kind of fascinating unreality up on that lonely height. There remained but
one thing solid in Jon's past – his mother; but one thing solid
in Fleur's – her father; and of these figures, as though seen in
the distance with disapproving faces, they spoke little.
The Down dipped and rose again toward Chanctonbury
Ring; a sparkle of far sea came into view, a sparrow-hawk hov-
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JOHN GALSWORTHY
ered in the sun's eye so that the blood-nourished brown of his
wings gleamed nearly red. Jon had a passion for birds, and an
aptitude for sitting very still to watch them; keen-sighted, and
with a memory for what interested him, on birds he was almost worth listening to. But in Chanctonbury Ring there
were none – its great beech temple was empty of life, and almost chilly at this early hour; they came out willingly again
into the sun on the far side. It was Fleur's turn now. She spoke
of dogs, and the way people treated them. It was wicked to
keep them on chains! She would like to flog people who did
that. Jon was astonished to find her so humanitarian. She
knew a dog, it seemed, which some farmer near her home kept
chained up at the end of his chicken run, in all weathers, till it
had almost lost its voice from barking!
"And the misery is," she said vehemently, "that if the poor
thing didn't bark at every one who passes it wouldn't be kept
there. I do think men are cunning brutes. I've let it go twice,
on the sly; it's nearly bitten me both times, and then it goes
simply mad with joy; but it always runs back home at last, and
they chain it up again. If I had my way, I'd chain that man up."
Jon saw her teeth and her eyes gleam. "I'd brand him on his
forehead with the word 'Brute'; that would teach him!"
Jon agreed that it would be a good remedy.
"It's their sense of property," he said, "which makes people
chain things. The last generation thought of nothing but
property; and that's why there was the War."
"Oh!" said Fleur, "I never thought of that. Your people and
mine quarrelled about property. And anyway we've all got
it – at least, I suppose your people have."
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AWAKENING TO LET
"Oh! yes, luckily; I don't suppose I shall be any good at
making money."
"If you were, I don't believe I should like you."
Jon slipped his hand tremulously under her arm. Fleur
looked straight before her and chanted:
"Jon, Jon, the farmer's son, Stole a pig, and away he run!"
Jon's arm crept round her waist.
"This is rather sudden," said Fleur calmly; "do you often
do it?"
Jon dropped his arm. But when she laughed his arm stole
back again; and Fleur began to sing:
"O who will oer the downs so free, O who will with me
ride? O who will up and follow me – -"
"Sing, Jon!"
Jon sang. The larks joined in, sheep-bells, and an early
morning church far away over in Steyning. They went on from
tune to tune, till Fleur said:
"My God! I am hungry now!"
"Oh! I am sorry!"
She looked round into his face.
"Jon, you're rather a darling."
And she pressed his hand against her waist. Jon almost
reeled from happiness. A yellow-and-white dog coursing
a hare startled them apart. They watched the two vanish down
the slope, till Fleur said with a sigh: "He'll never catch it,
thank goodness! What's the time? Mine's stopped. I never
wound it."
Jon looked at his watch. "By Jove!" he said, "mine's stopped;
too."
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JOHN GALSWORTHY
They walked on again, but only hand in hand.
"If the grass is dry," said Fleur, "let's sit down for half
a minute."
Jon took off his coat, and they shared it.
"Smell! Actually wild thyme!"
With his arm round her waist again, they sat some min-
utes in silence.
"We are goats!" cried Fleur, jumping up; "we shall be most
fearfully late, and look so silly, and put them on their guard.
Look here, Jon We only came out to get an appetite for breakfast, and lost our way. See?"
"Yes," said Jon.
"It's serious; there'll be a stopper put on us. Are you a good
liar?"
"I believe not very; but I can try."
Fleur frowned.
"You know," she said, "I realize that they don't mean us to
be friends."
"Why not?"
"I told you why."
"But that's silly."
"Yes; but you don't know my father!"
"I suppose he's fearfully fond of you."
"You see, I'm an only child. And so are you – of your
mother. Isn't it a bore? There's so much expected of one. By
the time they've done expecting, one's as good as dead."
"Yes," muttered Jon, "life's beastly short. One wants to live
forever, and know everything."
"And love everybody?"
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AWAKENING TO LET
"No," cried Jon; "I only want to love once – you."
"Indeed! You're coming on! Oh! Look! There's the chalk-
pit; we can't be very far now. Let's run."
Jon followed, wondering fearfully if he had offended her.
The chalk-pit was full of sunshine and the murmuration
of bees. Fleur flung back her hair.
"Well," she said, "in case of accidents, you may give me one
kiss, Jon," and she pushed her cheek forward. With ecstasy he
kissed that hot soft cheek.
"Now, remember! We lost our way; and leave it to me as
much as you can. I'm going to be rather beastly to you; it's saf-
er; try and be beastly to me!"
Jon shook his head. "That's impossible."
"Just to please me; till five o'clock, at all events."
"Anybody will be able to see through it," said Jon gloomily.
"Well, do your best. Look! There they are! Wave your hat!
Oh! you haven't got one. Well, I'll cooee! Get a little away from
me, and look sulky."
Five minutes later, entering the house and doing his ut-
most to look sulky, Jon heard her clear voice in the dining-
room:
"Oh! I'm simply ravenous! He's going to be a farmer – and
he loses his way! The boy's an idiot!"
CHAPTER IX
GOYA
Lunch was over and Soames mounted to the picture-gal-
lery in his house near Mapleduram. He had what Annette
called "a grief." Fleur was not yet home. She had been expected on Wednesday; had wired that it would be Friday; and
again on Friday that it would be Sunday afternoon; and here
were her aunt, and her cousins the Cardigans, and this fellow
Profond, and everything flat as a pancake for the want of her.
He stood before his Gauguin – sorest point of his collection.
He had bought the ugly great thing with two early Matisses
before the War, because there was such a fuss about those
Post-Impressionist chaps. He was wondering whether Profond
would take them off his hands – the fellow seemed not to
know what to do with his money – when he heard his sister's
voice say: "I think that's a horrid thing, Soames," and saw that
Winifred had followed him up.
"Oh! you do?" he said dryly; "I gave five hundred for it."
"Fancy! Women aren't made like that even if they are
black."
Soames uttered a glum laugh. "You didn't come up to tell
me that."
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AWAKENING TO LET
"No. Do you know that Jolyon's boy is staying with Val
and his wife?"
Soames spun round.
"What?"
"Yes," drawled Winifred; "he's gone to live with them
there while he learns farming."
Soames had turned away, but her voice pursued him as he
walked up and down. "I warned Val that neither of them was
to be spoken to about old matters."
"Why didn't you tell me before?"
Winifred shrugged her substantial shoulders.
"Fleur does what she likes. You've always spoiled her. Be-
sides, my dear boy, what's the harm?"
"The harm!" muttered Soames. "Why, she – " he checked
himself. The Juno, the handkerchief, Fleur's eyes, her questions, and now this delay in her return – the symptoms
seemed to him so sinister that, faithful to his nature, he could
not part with them.
"I think you take too much care," said Winifred. "If I were
you, I should tell her of that old matter. It's no good thinking
that girls in these days are as they used to be. Where they pick
up their knowledge I can't tell, but they seem to know everything."
Over Soames' face, closely composed, passed a sort of
spasm, and Winifred added hastily:
"If you don't like to speak of it, I could for you."
Soames shook his head. Unless there was absolute neces-
sity the thought that his adored daughter should learn of that
old scandal hurt his pride too much.
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JOHN GALSWORTHY
"No," he said, "not yet. Never if I can help it.
"Nonsense, my dear. Think what people are!"
"Twenty years is a long time," muttered Soames. "Outside
our family, who's likely to remember?"
Winifred was silenced. She inclined more and more to that
peace and quietness of which Montague Dartie had deprived
her in her youth. And, since pictures always depressed her,
she soon went down again.
Soames passed into the corner where, side by side, hung
his real Goya and the copy of the fresco "La Vendimia." His
acquisition of the real Goya rather beautifully illustrated the
cobweb of vested interests and passions which mesh the
bright-winged fly of human life. The real Goya's noble owner's ancestor had come into possession of it during some Spanish war – it was in a word loot. The noble owner had remained
in ignorance of its value until in the nineties an enterprising
critic discovered that a Spanish painter named Goya was a genius. It was only a fair Goya, but almost unique in England,
and the noble owner became a marked man. Having many
possessions and that aristocratic culture which, independent
of mere sensuous enjoyment, is founded on the sounder principle that one must know everything and be fearfully interested in life, he had fully intended to keep an article which
contributed to his reputation while he was alive, and to leave
it to the nation after he was dead. Fortunately for Soames, the
House of Lords was violently attacked in 1909, and the noble
owner became alarmed and angry. 'If,' he said to himself, 'they
think they can have it both ways they are very much mistaken.
So long as they leave me in quiet enjoyment the nation can
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AWAKENING TO LET
have some of my pictures at my death. But if the nation is going to bait me, and rob me like this, I'm damned if I won't sell
the lot. They can't have my private property and my public
spirit-both.' He brooded in this fashion for several months till
one morning, after reading the speech of a certain statesman,
he telegraphed to his agent to come down and bring Bodkin.
On going over the collection Bodkin, than whose opinion on
market values none was more sought, pronounced that with
a free hand to sell to America, Germany, and other places
where there was an interest in art, a lot more money could be
made than by selling in England. The noble owner's public
spirit – he said – was well known but the pictures were
unique. The noble owner put this opinion in his pipe and
smoked it for a year. At the end of that time he read another
speech by the same statesman, and telegraphed to his agents:
"Give Bodkin a free hand." It was at this juncture that Bodkin
conceived the idea which salved the Goya and two other
unique pictures for the native country of the noble owner.
With one hand Bodkin proffered the pictures to the foreign
market, with the other he formed a list of private British collectors. Having obtained what he considered the highest possible bids from across the seas, he submitted pictures and bids
to the private British collectors, and invited them, of their
public spirit, to outbid. In three instances (including the
Goya) out of twenty-one he was successful. And why? One of
the private collectors made buttons – he had made so many
that he desired that his wife should be called Lady "Buttons."
He therefore bought a unique picture at great cost, and gave it
to the nation. It was "part," his friends said, "of his general
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JOHN GALSWORTHY
game." The second of the private collectors was an Americophobe, and bought an unique picture to "spite the damned
Yanks." The third of the private collectors was Soames, who –
more sober than either of the, others – bought after a visit to
Madrid, because he was certain that Goya was still on the up
grade. Goya was not booming at the moment, but he would
come again; and, looking at that portrait, Hogarthian, Manetesque in its directness, but with its own queer sharp beauty of
paint, he was perfectly satisfied still that he had made no error, heavy though the price had been – heaviest he had ever
paid. And next to it was hanging the copy of "La Vendimia."
There she was – the little wretch-looking back at him in her
dreamy mood, the mood he loved best because he felt so much
safer when she looked like that.
He was still gazing when the scent of a cigar impinged on
his nostrils, and a voice said:
"Well, Mr. Forsyde, what you goin' to do with this small
lot?"
That Belgian chap, whose mother-as if Flemish blood were
not enough – had been Armenian! Subduing a natural irritation, he said:
"Are you a judge of pictures?"
"Well, I've got a few myself."
"Any Post-Impressionists?"
"Ye-es, I rather like them."
"What do you think of this?" said Soames, pointing to the
Gauguin.
Monsieur Profond protruded his lower lip and short
pointed beard.
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