Добавил:
ivanov666
Опубликованный материал нарушает ваши авторские права? Сообщите нам.
Вуз:
Предмет:
Файл:The Forsyte Saga. Indian Summer of a Forsyte & In Chancery. Volume II
.pdf
INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE IN CHANCERY
"Not yet."
"Then you must go and do it at once. Come along."
"But she began it, Gran; and she had two to my one."
"My dear, it was an outrageous thing to do."
"Well, she lost her temper; and I didn't lose mine."
"Come along."
"You come too, then, Gran."
"Well – this time only."
And they had gone hand in hand.
Here – where the Waverley novels and Byron's works and
Gibbon's Roman Empire and Humboldt's Cosmos, and the
bronzes on the mantelpiece, and that masterpiece of the oily
school, 'Dutch Fishing-Boats at Sunset,' were fixed as fate, and
for all sign of change old Jolyon might have been sitting there
still, with legs crossed, in the arm chair, and domed forehead
and deep eyes grave above The Times – here they came, those
two grandchildren. And Jolly said:
"I saw you and that fellow in the Park."
The sight of blood rushing into her cheeks gave him some
satisfaction; she ought to be ashamed!
"Well?" she said.
Jolly was surprised; he had expected more, or less.
"Do you know," he said weightily, "that he called me a pro-
Boer last term? And I had to fight him."
"Who won?"
Jolly wished to answer: 'I should have,' but it seemed be-
neath him.
"Look here!" he said, "what's the meaning of it? Without
telling anybody!"
271
JOHN GALSWORTHY
"Why should I? Dad isn't here; why shouldn't I ride with
him?"
"You've got me to ride with. I think he's an awful young
rotter."
Holly went pale with anger.
"He isn't. It's your own fault for not liking him."
And slipping past her brother she went out, leaving him
staring at the bronze Venus sitting on a tortoise, which had
been shielded from him so far by his sister's dark head under
her soft felt riding hat. He felt queerly disturbed, shaken to
his young foundations. A lifelong domination lay shattered
round his feet. He went up to the Venus and mechanically
inspected the tortoise.
Why didn't he like Val Dartie? He could not tell. Ignorant
of family history, barely aware of that vague feud which had
started thirteen years before with Bosinney's defection from
June in favour of Soames' wife, knowing really almost nothing
about Val he was at sea. He just did dislike him. The question,
however, was: What should he do? Val Dartie, it was true, was
a second-cousin, but it was not the thing for Holly to go about
with him. And yet to 'tell' of what he had chanced on was
against his creed. In this dilemma he went and sat in the old
leather chair and crossed his legs. It grew dark while he sat
there staring out through the long window at the old oaktree, ample yet bare of leaves, becoming slowly just a shape of
deeper dark printed on the dusk.
'Grandfather!' he thought without sequence, and took out
his watch. He could not see the hands, but he set the repeater
going. 'Five o'clock!' His grandfather's first gold hunter watch,
272
INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE IN CHANCERY
butter-smooth with age – all the milling worn from it, and
dented with the mark of many a fall. The chime was like a little voice from out of that golden age, when they first came
from St. John's Wood, London, to this house – came driving
with grandfather in his carriage, and almost instantly took to
the trees. Trees to climb, and grand- father watering the geranium-beds below! What was to be done? Tell Dad he must
come home? Confide in June? – only she was so – so sudden!
Do nothing and trust to luck? After all, the Vac. would soon
be over. Go up and see Val and warn him off? But how get his
address? Holly wouldn't give it him! A maze of paths, a cloud
of possibilities! He lit a cigarette. When he had smoked it halfway through his brow relaxed, almost as if some thin old hand
had been passed gently over it; and in his ear something
seemed to whisper: 'Do nothing; be nice to Holly, be nice to
her, my dear!' And Jolly heaved a sigh of contentment, blow-
ing smoke through his nostrils....
But up in her room, divested of her habit, Holly was still
frowning. 'He is not – he is not!' were the words which kept
forming on her lips.
CHAPTER VI
JOLYON IN TWO MINDS
A little private hotel over a well-known restaurant near
the Gare St. Lazare was Jolyon's haunt in Paris. He hated his
fellow Forsytes abroad – vapid as fish out of water in their
well-trodden runs, the Opera, Rue de Rivoli, and Moulin
Rouge. Their air of having come because they wanted to be
somewhere else as soon as possible annoyed him. But no other
Forsyte came near this haunt, where he had a wood fire in his
bedroom and the coffee was excel- lent. Paris was always to
him more attractive in winter. The acrid savour from
woodsmoke and chestnut-roasting braziers, the sharpness of
the wintry sunshine on bright rays, the open cafes defying
keen-aired winter, the self-contained brisk boulevard crowds,
all informed him that in winter Paris possessed a soul which,
like a migrant bird, in high summer flew away.
He spoke French well, had some friends, knew little places
where pleasant dishes could be met with, queer types observed. He felt philosophic in Paris, the edge of irony sharpened; life took on a subtle, purposeless meaning, became
a bunch of flavours tasted, a darkness shot with shifting
gleams of light.
274
INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE IN CHANCERY
When in the first week of December he decided to go to
Paris, he was far from admitting that Irene's presence was influencing him. He had not been there two days before he
owned that the wish to see her had been more than half the
reason. In England one did not admit what was natural. He
had thought it might be well to speak to her about the letting
of her flat and other matters, but in Paris he at once knew better. There was a glamour over the city. On the third day he
wrote to her, and received an answer which procured him
a pleasurable shiver of the nerves:
"MY DEAR JOLYON,
"It will be a happiness for me to see you.
"IRENE."
He took his way to her hotel on a bright day with a feeling
such as he had often had going to visit an adored picture. No
woman, so far as he remembered, had ever inspired in him
this special sen- suous and yet impersonal sensation. He was
going to sit and feast his eyes, and come away knowing her no
better, but ready to go and feast his eyes again to-morrow.
Such was his feeling, when in the tarnished and ornate little
lounge of a quiet hotel near the river she came to him preceded by a small page-boy who uttered the word, "Madame,"
and vanished. Her face, her smile, the poise of her figure, were
just as he had pictured, and the expression of her face said
plainly: 'A friend!'
"Well," he said, "what news, poor exile?"
"None."
275
JOHN GALSWORTHY
"Nothing from Soames?"
"Nothing."
"I have let the flat for you, and like a good steward I bring
you some money. How do you like Paris?"
While he put her through this catechism, it seemed to him
that he had never seen lips so fine and sensitive, the lower lip
curving just a little upwards, the upper touched at one corner
by the least conceivable dimple. It was like discovering a woman in what had hitherto been a sort of soft and breathed-on
statue, almost impersonally admired. She owned that to be
alone in Paris was a little difficult; and yet, Paris was so full of
its own life that it was often, she confessed, as innocuous as
a desert. Besides, the English were not liked just now!
"That will hardly be your case," said Jolyon; "you should
appeal to the French."
"It has its disadvantages."
Jolyon nodded.
"Well, you must let me take you about while I'm here.
We'll start to-morrow. Come and dine at my pet restaurant;
and we'll go to the Opera-Comique."
It was the beginning of daily meetings.
Jolyon soon found that for those who desired a static con-
dition of the affections, Paris was at once the first and last
place in which to be friendly with a pretty woman. Revelation
was alighting like a bird in his heart, singing: 'Elle est ton reve!
Elle est ton reve! Sometimes this seemed natural, sometimes
ludicrous – a bad case of elderly rapture. Having once been
ostracised by Society, he had never since had any real regard
for conventional morality; but the idea of a love which she
276
INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE IN CHANCERY
could never return – and how could she at his age? – hardly
mounted beyond his subconscious mind. He was full, too, of
resentment, at the waste and loneliness of her life. Aware of
being some comfort to her, and of the pleasure she clearly
took in their many little outings, he was amiably desirous of
doing and saying nothing to destroy that pleasure. It was like
watching a starved plant draw up water, to see her drink in
his companionship. So far as they could tell, no one knew her
address except himself; she was unknown in Paris, and he but
little known, so that discretion seemed unnecessary in those
walks, talks, visits to concerts, picture-galleries, theatres, little
dinners, expeditions to Versailles, St. Cloud, even Fontainebleau. And time fled – one of those full months without past to
it or future. What in his youth would certainly have been
headlong passion, was now perhaps as deep a feeling, but far
gentler, tempered to protective companionship by admiration, hopelessness, and a sense of chivalry- -arrested in his
veins at least so long as she was there, smiling and happy in
their friendship, and always to him more beautiful and spiritually responsive: for her philosophy of life seemed to march
in admirable step with his own, conditioned by emotion more
than by reason, ironically mistrustful, susceptible to beauty,
almost passionately humane and tolerant, yet subject to instinctive rigidities of which as a mere man he was less capable.
And during all this companionable month he never quite lost
that feeling with which he had set out on the first day as if to
visit an adored work of art, a well-nigh impersonal desire. The
future – inexorable pendant to the present he took care not
to face, for fear of breaking up his untroubled manner; but he
277
JOHN GALSWORTHY
made plans to renew this time in places still more delightful,
where the sun was hot and there were strange things to see
and paint. The end came swiftly on the 20th of January with
a telegram:
"Have enlisted in Imperial Yeomanry. JOLLY."
Jolyon received it just as he was setting out to meet her at
the Louvre. It brought him up with a round turn. While he
was lotus- eating here, his boy, whose philosopher and guide
he ought to be, had taken this great step towards danger,
hardship, perhaps even death. He felt disturbed to the soul,
realising suddenly how Irene had twined herself round the
roots of his being. Thus threatened with severance, the tie between them – for it had become a kind of tie – no longer had
impersonal quality. The tranquil enjoyment of things in common, Jolyon perceived, was gone for ever. He saw his feeling
as it was, in the nature of an infatuation. Ridiculous, perhaps,
but so real that sooner or later it must disclose itself. And now,
as it seemed to him, he could not, must not, make any such
disclosure. The news of Jolly stood inexorably in the way. He
was proud of this enlistment; proud of his boy for going off to
fight for the country; for on Jolyon's pro-Boerism, too, Black
Week had left its mark. And so the end was reached before
the beginning! Well, luckily he had never made a sign!
When he came into the Gallery she was standing before
the 'Virgin of the Rocks,' graceful, absorbed, smiling and unconscious. 'Have I to give up seeing that?' he thought. 'It's unnatural, so long as she's willing that I should see her.' He
278
INDIAN SUMMER OF A FORSYTE IN CHANCERY
stood, unnoticed, watching her, storing up the image of her
figure, envying the picture on which she was bending that
long scrutiny. Twice she turned her head towards the entrance, and he thought: 'That's for me!' At last he went forward.
"Look!" he said.
She read the telegram, and he heard her sigh.
That sigh, too, was for him! His position was really cruel!
To be loyal to his son he must just shake her hand and go. To
be loyal to the feeling in his heart he must at least tell her
what that feeling was. Could she, would she understand the
silence in which he was gazing at that picture?
"I'm afraid I must go home at once," he said at last. "I shall
miss all this awfully."
"So shall I; but, of course, you must go."
"Well!" said Jolyon holding out his hand.
Meeting her eyes, a flood of feeling nearly mastered him.
"Such is life!" he said. "Take care of yourself, my dear!"
He had a stumbling sensation in his legs and feet, as if his
brain refused to steer him away from her. From the doorway,
he saw her lift her hand and touch its fingers with her lips. He
raised his hat solemnly, and did not look back again.
CHAPTER VII
DARTIE VERSUS DARTIE
The suit – Dartie versus Dartie – for restitution of those
conjugal rights concerning which Winifred was at heart so
deeply undecided, followed the laws of subtraction towards
day of judgment. This was not reached before the Courts rose
for Christmas, but the case was third on the list when they
sat again. Winifred spent the Christmas holidays a thought
more fashionably than usual, with the matter locked up in
her low-cut bosom. James was particularly liberal to her that
Christmas, expressing thereby his sympathy, and relief, at
the approaching dissolution of her marriage with that 'precious rascal,' which his old heart felt but his old lips could
not utter.
The disappearance of Dartie made the fall in Consols
a comparatively small matter; and as to the scandal – the real animus he felt against that fellow, and the increasing lead
which property was attaining over reputation in a true Forsyte about to leave this world, served to drug a mind from
which all allusions to the matter (except his own) were studiously kept. What worried him as a lawyer and a parent was
the fear that Dartie might suddenly turn up and obey the
280
Соседние файлы в предмете [НЕСОРТИРОВАННОЕ]