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"Go away and live this down," said Soames.
Young Mont said imploringly: "Oh! no, sir. I simply must hang round, or I shouldn't have a dog's chance. You'll let Fleur do what she likes, I suppose, anyway. Madame passes me."
"Indeed!" said Soames frigidly.
"You don't really bar me, do you?" and the young man looked so doleful that Soames smiled.
"You may think you're very old," he said; "but you strike me as extremely young. To rattle ahead of everything is not a proof of maturity."
"All right, sir; I give you our age. But to show you I mean business – I've got a job."
"Glad to hear it."
"Joined a publisher; my governor is putting up the stakes."
Soames put his hand over his mouth – he had so very nearly said: "God help the publisher." His grey eyes scrutinised the agitated young man.
"I don't dislike you, Mr. Mont, but Fleur is everything to me. Everything – do you understand?"
"Yes, sir, I know; but so she is to me."
"That's as may be. I'm glad you've told me, however. And now I think there's nothing more to be said."
"I know it rests with her, sir."
"It will rest with her a long time, I hope."
"You aren't cheering," said Mont suddenly.
"No," said Soames; "my experience of life has not made me anxious to couple people in a hurry. Good-night, Mr. Mont. I shan't tell Fleur what you've said."
"Oh!" murmured Mont blankly; "I really could knock my brains out for want of her. She knows that perfectly well."
"I dare say," and Soames held out his hand. A distracted squeeze, a heavy sigh, and, soon after, sounds from the young man's motor-cycle called up visions of flying dust and broken bones.
'The younger generation!' he thought heavily, and went out on to the lawn. The gardeners had been mowing, and there was still the smell of fresh-cut grass – the thundery air kept all scents close to earth. The sky was of a purplish hue – the poplars black. Two or three boats passed on the river, scuttling, as it were, for shelter before the storm. 'Three days fine weather,' thought Soames, 'and then a storm!' Where was Annette? With that chap, for all he knew – she was a young woman! Impressed with the queer charity of that thought, he entered the summer-house and sat down. The fact was – and he admitted it – Fleur was so much to him that his wife was very little – very little; French – had hardly been more than a mistress, and he was getting indifferent to that side of things! It was odd how, with all his ingrained care for moderation and secure investment, Soames ever put his emotional eggs into one basket. First Irene – now Fleur. He was just conscious of it, sitting there, conscious of its odd dangerousness. It had brought him to wreck and scandal once, but now – now it should save him! He cared so much for Fleur that he would have no further scandal. If only he could get at that anonymous letter writer, he would teach the fellow not to meddle and stir up mud at the bottom of water which he wished should remain stagnant!.. A distant flash, a low rumble, and large drops of rain spattered on the thatch above him. He remained indifferent, tracing a pattern with his finger on the dusty surface of a little rustic table. Fleur's future! 'I want fair sailing for her,' he thought. 'Nothing else matters at my time of life.' A lonely business – life! What you had you never could keep to yourself! As you warned one off, you let another in. One could make sure of nothing! He reached up and pulled a red rambler rose from a cluster which blocked the window. Flowers grew and dropped – you couldn't keep them! The thunder rumbled and crashed, travelling east along the river, the paling flashes flicked his eyes; the poplar tops showed sharp and dense against the sky, a heavy shower rustled and rattled and veiled in the little house wherein he sat, indifferent, thinking.
When the storm was over, he left his retreat and went down the wet path to the river bank.
Two swans had come, sheltering in among the reeds. He knew the birds well, and stood watching the dignity in the curve of those white necks and formidable snake-like heads. 'Not dignified – what I have to do!' he thought. And yet it must be tackled, lest worse befell. Annette must be back by now from wherever she had gone, for it was nearly dinner-time, and as the moment for seeing her approached, the difficulty of knowing what to say and how to say it had increased. A new and scaring thought occurred to him. Suppose she wanted her liberty to marry this fellow! Well, if she did, she couldn't have it. He had not married her for that. The image of Prosper Profond dawdled before him reassuringly. Not a marrying man! No, no! Anger replaced that momentary scare. 'He had better not come my way,' he thought. The mongrel represented – ! Ah! what did Prosper Profond represent? Nothing that mattered surely. And yet something real enough in the world – unmorality let off its chain, disillusionment on the prowl! That expression Annette had caught from him: "Je m'en fiche!" A fatalistic chap! A Continental – a cosmopolitan – a product of the age! If there were condemnation more complete, Soames felt that he did not know it.
The swans had turned their heads, and were looking past him into some distance of their own. One of them uttered a little hiss, wagged its tail, turned as if answering to a rudder, and swam away. The other followed. Their white bodies, their stately necks, passed out of his sight, and he went towards the house.
Annette was in the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, and he thought as he went up-stairs: 'Handsome is as handsome does.' Handsome! Except for remarks about the curtains in the drawing-room, and the storm, there was practically no conversation during a meal distinguished by exactitude of quantity and perfection of quality. Soames drank nothing. He followed her into the drawing-room afterwards, and found her smoking a cigarette on the sofa between the two French windows. She was leaning back, almost upright, in a low black frock, with her knees crossed and her blue eyes half closed; grey-blue smoke issued from her red, rather full lips, a fillet bound her chestnut hair, she wore the thinnest silk stockings, and shoes with very high heels showing off her instep. A fine piece in any room! Soames, who held that torn letter in a hand thrust deep into the side-pocket of his dinner-jacket, said:
"I'm going to shut the window; the damp's lifting in."
He did so, and stood looking at a David Cox adorning the cream-panelled wall close by.
What was she thinking of? He had never understood a woman in his life – except Fleur – and Fleur not always! His heart beat fast. But if he meant to do it, now was the moment. Turning from the David Cox, he took out the torn letter.
"I've had this."
Her eyes widened, stared at him, and hardened.
Soames handed her the letter.
"It's torn, but you can read it." And he turned back to the David Cox – a seapiece, of good tone but without movement enough. 'I wonder what that chap's doing at this moment?' he thought. 'I'll astonish him yet.' Out of the corner of his eye he saw Annette holding the letter rigidly; her eyes moved from side to side under her darkened lashes and frowning darkened eyebrows. She dropped the letter, gave a little shiver, smiled, and said:
"Dirrty!"
"I quite agree," said Soames; "degrading. Is it true?"
A tooth fastened on her red lower lip. "And what if it were?"
She was brazen!
"Is that all you have to say?"
"No."
"Well, speak out!"
"What is the good of talking?"
Soames said icily: "So you admit it?"
"I admit nothing. You are a fool to ask. A man like you should not ask. It is dangerous."
Soames made a tour of the room, to subdue his rising anger.
"Do you remember," he said, halting in front of her, "what you were when I married you? Working at accounts in a restaurant."
"Do you remember that I was not half your age?"
Soames broke off the hard encounter of their eyes, and went back to the David Cox.
"I am not going to bandy words. I require you to give up this – friendship. I think of the matter entirely as it affects Fleur."
"Ah! – Fleur!"
"Yes," said Soames stubbornly; "Fleur. She is your child as well as mine."
"It is kind to admit that!"
"Are you going to do what I say?"
"I refuse to tell you."
"Then I must make you."
Annette smiled.
"No, Soames," she said. "You are helpless. Do not say things that you will regret."
Anger swelled the veins on his forehead. He opened his mouth to vent that emotion, and – could not. Annette went on:
"There shall be no more such letters, I promise you. That is enough."
Soames writhed. He had a sense of being treated like a child by this woman who had deserved he did not know what.
"When two people have married, and lived like us, Soames, they had better be quiet about each other. There are things one does not drag up into the light for people to laugh at. You will be quiet, then; not for my sake – for your own. You are getting old; I am not, yet. You have made me ver-ry practical." Soames, who had passed through all the sensations of being choked, repeated dully:
"I require you to give up this friendship."
"And if I do not?"
"Then – then I will cut you out of my Will."
Somehow it did not seem to meet the case. Annette laughed.
"You will live a long time, Soames."
"You – you are a bad woman," said Soames suddenly.
Annette shrugged her shoulders.
"I do not think so. Living with you has killed things in me, it is true; but I am not a bad woman. I am sensible – that is all. And so will you be when you have thought it over."
"I shall see this man," said Soames sullenly, "and warn him off."
"Mon cher, you are funny. You do not want me, you have as much of me as you want; and you wish the rest of me to be dead. I admit nothing, but I am not going to be dead, Soames, at my age; so you had better be quiet, I tell you. I myself will make no scandal; none. Now, I am not saying any more, whatever you do."
She reached out, took a French novel off a little table, and opened it. Soames watched her, silenced by the tumult of his feelings. The thought of that man was almost making him want her, and this was a revelation of their relationship, startling to one little given to introspective philosophy. Without saying another word he went out and up to the picture-gallery. This came of marrying a Frenchwoman! And yet, without her there would have been no Fleur! She had served her purpose.
'She's right,' he thought; 'I can do nothing. I don't even KNOW that there's anything in it.' The instinct of self-preservation warned him to batten down his hatches, to smother the fire with want of air. Unless one believed there was something in a thing, there wasn't.
That night he went into her room. She received him in the most matter-of-fact way, as if there had been no scene between them. And he returned to his own room with a curious sense of peace. If one didn't choose to see, one needn't. And he did not choose – in future he did not choose. There was nothing to be gained by it – nothing! Opening the drawer he took from the sachet a handkerchief, and the framed photograph of Fleur. When he had looked at it a little he slipped it down, and there was that other one – that old one of Irene. An owl hooted while he stood in his window gazing at it. The owl hooted, the red climbing roses seemed to deepen in colour, there came a scent of lime-blossom. God! That had been a different thing! Passion – Memory! Dust!
VII
JUNE TAKES A HAND
One who was a sculptor, a Slav, a sometime resident in New York, an egoist, and impecunious, was to be found of an evening in June Forsyte's studio on the bank of the Thames at Chiswick. On the evening of July 6, Boris Strumolowski – several of whose works were on show there because they were as yet too advanced to be on show anywhere else – had begun well, with that aloof and rather Christlike silence which admirably suited his youthful, round, broad-cheekboned countenance framed in bright hair banged like a girl's. June had known him three weeks, and he still seemed to her the principal embodiment of genius, and hope of the future; a sort of Star of the East which had strayed into an unappreciative West. Until that evening he had conversationally confined himself to recording his impressions of the United States, whose dust he had just shaken from off his feet – a country, in his opinion, so barbarous in every way that he had sold practically nothing there, and become an object of suspicion to the police; a country, as he said, without a race of its own, without liberty, equality, or fraternity, without principles, traditions, taste, without – in a word – a soul. He had left it for his own good, and come to the only other country where he could live well. June had dwelt unhappily on him in her lonely moments, standing before his creations – frightening, but powerful and symbolic once they had been explained! That he, haloed by bright hair like an early Italian painting, and absorbed in his genius to the exclusion of all else – the only sign of course by which real genius could be told – should still be a "lame duck" agitated her warm heart almost to the exclusion of Paul Post. And she had begun to take steps to clear her Gallery, in order to fill it with Strumolowski masterpieces. She had at once encountered trouble. Paul Post had kicked; Vospovitch had stung. With all the emphasis of a genius which she did not as yet deny them, they had demanded another six weeks at least of her Gallery. The American stream, still flowing in, would soon be flowing out. The American stream was their right, their only hope, their salvation – since nobody in this "beastly" country cared for Art. June had yielded to the demonstration. After all Boris would not mind their having the full benefit of an American stream, which he himself so violently despised.
This evening she had put that to Boris with nobody else present, except Hannah Hobdey, the mediaeval black-and-whitist, and Jimmy Portugal, editor of the Neo-Artist. She had put it to him with that sudden confidence which continual contact with the neo-artistic world had never been able to dry up in her warm and generous nature. He had not broken his Christlike silence, however, for more than two minutes before she began to move her blue eyes from side to side, as a cat moves its tail. This – he said – was characteristic of England, the most selfish country in the world; the country which sucked the blood of other countries; destroyed the brains and hearts of Irishmen, Hindus, Egyptians, Boers, and Burmese, all the finest races in the world; bullying, hypocritical England! This was what he had expected, coming to such a country, where the climate was all fog, and the people all tradesmen perfectly blind to Art, and sunk in profiteering and the grossest materialism. Conscious that Hannah Hobdey was murmuring: "Hear, hear!" and Jimmy Portugal sniggering, June grew crimson, and suddenly rapped out:
"Then why did you ever come? We didn't ask you." The remark was so singularly at variance with all that she had led him to expect from her, that Strumolowski stretched out his hand and took a cigarette.
"England never wants an idealist," he said.
But in June something primitively English was thoroughly upset; old Jolyon's sense of justice had risen, as it were, from bed. "You come and sponge on us," she said, "and then abuse us. If you think that's playing the game, I don't."
She now discovered that which others had discovered before her – the thickness of hide beneath which the sensibility of genius is sometimes veiled. Strumolowski's young and ingenuous face became the incarnation of a sneer.
"Sponge, one does not sponge, one takes what is owing – a tenth part of what is owing. You will repent to say that, Miss Forsyte."
"Oh, no," said June, "I shan't."
"Ah! We know very well, we artists – you take us to get what you can out of us. I want nothing from you" – and he blew out a cloud of June's smoke.
Decision rose in an icy puff from the turmoil of insulted shame within her. "Very well, then, you can take your things away."
And, almost in the same moment, she thought: 'Poor boy! He's only got a garret, and probably not a taxi fare. In front of these people, too; it's positively disgusting!'
Young Strumolowski shook his head violently; his hair, thick, smooth, close as a golden plate, did not fall off.
"I can live on nothing," he said shrilly; "I have often had to for the sake of my Art. It is you bourgeois who force us to spend money."
The words hit June like a pebble, in the ribs. After all she had done for Art, all her identification with its troubles and lame ducks. She was struggling for adequate words when the door was opened, and her Austrian murmured:
"A young lady, gnadiges fraulein."
"Where?"
"In the little meal-room."
With a glance at Boris Strumolowski, at Hannah Hobdey, at Jimmy Portugal, June said nothing, and went out, devoid of equanimity. Entering the "little meal-room," she perceived the young lady to be Fleur – looking very pretty, if pale. At this disenchanted moment a lame duck of her own breed was welcome to June, so homoeopathic by instinct.
The girl must have come, of course, because of Jon; or, if not, at least to get something out of her. And June felt just then that to assist somebody was the only bearable thing.
"So you've remembered to come," she said.
"Yes. What a jolly little duck of a house! But please don't let me bother you, if you've got people."
"Not at all," said June. "I want to let them stew in their own juice for a bit. Have you come about Jon?"
"You said you thought we ought to be told. Well, I've found out."
"Oh!" said June blankly. "Not nice, is it?"
They were standing one on each side of the little bare table at which June took her meals. A vase on it was full of Iceland poppies; the girl raised her hand and touched them with a gloved finger. To her new-fangled dress, frilly about the hips and tight below the knees, June took a sudden liking – a charming colour, flax-blue.
'She makes a picture,' thought June. Her little room, with its whitewashed walls, its floor and hearth of old pink brick, its black paint, and latticed window athwart which the last of the sunlight was shining, had never looked so charming, set off by this young figure, with the creamy, slightly frowning face. She remembered with sudden vividness how nice she herself had looked in those old days when HER heart was set on Philip Bosinney, that dead lover, who had broken from her to destroy for ever Irene's allegiance to this girl's father. Did Fleur know of that, too?
"Well," she said, "what are you going to do?"
It was some seconds before Fleur answered.
"I don't want Jon to suffer. I must see him once more to put an end to it."
"You're going to put an end to it!"
"What else is there to do?"
The girl seemed to June, suddenly, intolerably spiritless.
"I suppose you're right," she muttered. "I know my father thinks so; but – I should never have done it myself. I can't take things lying down."
How poised and watchful that girl looked; how unemotional her voice sounded!
"People WILL assume that I'm in love."
"Well, aren't you?"
Fleur shrugged her shoulders. 'I might have known it,' thought June; 'she's Soames' daughter – fish! And yet – he!'
"Well, what do you want ME to do?" she said with a sort of disgust.
"Could I see Jon here to-morrow on his way down to Holly's? He'd come if you sent him a line to-night, and perhaps afterwards you'd let them know quietly at Robin Hill that it's all over, and that they needn't tell Jon about his mother."
"All right!" said June abruptly. "I'll write now, and you can post it. Half-past two to-morrow. I shan't be in, myself."
She sat down at the tiny bureau which filled one corner. When she looked round with the finished note Fleur was still touching the poppies with her gloved finger.
June licked a stamp. "Well, here it is. If you're not in love, of course, there's no more to be said. Jon's lucky."
Fleur took the note. "Thanks awfully!"
'Cold-blooded little baggage!' thought June. Jon, son of her father, to love, and not to be loved by the daughter of – Soames! It was humiliating!
"Is that all?"
Fleur nodded; her frills shook and trembled as she swayed towards the door.
"Good-bye!"
"Good-bye! … Little piece of fashion!" muttered June, closing the door. "That family!" And she marched back towards her studio. Boris Strumolowski had regained his Christlike silence, and Jimmy Portugal was damning everybody, except the group in whose behalf he ran the Neo-Artist. Among the condemned were Eric Cobbley, and several other "lame-duck" genii who at one time or another had held first place in the repertoire of June's aid and adoration. She experienced a sense of futility and disgust, and went to the window to let the river-wind blow those squeaky words away.
But when at length Jimmy Portugal had finished, and gone with Hannah Hobdey, she sat down and mothered young Strumolowski for half an hour, promising him a month, at least, of the American stream; so that he went away with his halo in perfect order. 'In spite of all,' June thought, 'Boris IS wonderful.'
VIII
THE BIT BETWEEN THE TEETH
To know that your hand is against every one's is – for some natures – to experience a sense of moral release. Fleur felt no remorse when she left June's house. Reading condemnatory resentment in her little kinswoman's blue eyes – she was glad that she had fooled her, despising June because that elderly idealist had not seen what she was after.
End it, forsooth! She would soon show them all that she was only just beginning. And she smiled to herself on the top of the 'bus which carried her back to Mayfair. But the smile died, squeezed out by spasms of anticipation and anxiety. Would she be able to manage Jon? She had taken the bit between her teeth, but could she make him take it too? She knew the truth and the real danger of delay – he knew neither; therein lay all the difference in the world.
'Suppose I tell him,' she thought; 'wouldn't it really be safer?' This hideous luck had no right to spoil their love; he must see that! They could not let it! People always accepted an accomplished fact, in time! From that piece of philosophy – profound enough at her age – she passed to another consideration less philosophic. If she persuaded Jon to a quick and secret marriage, and he found out afterwards that she had known the truth! What then? Jon hated subterfuge. Again, then, would it not be better to tell him? But the memory of his mother's face kept intruding on that impulse. Fleur was afraid. His mother had power over him; more power perhaps than she herself. Who could tell? It was too great a risk. Deep-sunk in these instinctive calculations she was carried on past Green Street as far as the Ritz Hotel. She got down there, and walked back on the Green Park side. The storm had washed every tree; they still dripped. Heavy drops fell on to her frills, and to avoid them she crossed over under the eyes of the Iseeum Club. Chancing to look up she saw Monsieur Profond with a tall stout man in the bay window. Turning into Green Street she heard her name called, and saw "that prowler" coming up. He took off his hat – a glossy "bowler" such as she particularly detested:
"Good-evenin'! Miss Forsyde. Isn't there a small thing I can do for you?"
"Yes, pass by on the other side."
"I say! Why do you dislike me?"
"It looks like it."
"Well, then, because you make me feel life isn't worth living."
Monsieur Profond smiled.
"Look here, Miss Forsyde, don't worry. It'll be all right. Nothing lasts."
"Things do last," cried Fleur; "with me anyhow – especially likes and dislikes."
"Well, that makes me a bit un'appy."
"I should have thought nothing could ever make you happy or unhappy."
"I don't like to annoy other people. I'm goin' on my yacht."
Fleur looked at him, startled.
"Where?"
"Small voyage to the South Seas or somewhere," said Monsieur Profond.
Fleur suffered relief and a sense of insult. Clearly he meant to convey that he was breaking with her mother. How dared he have anything to break, and yet how dared he break it?