The Forsyte Saga(346)

When she was gone like a passionate dream, leaving her image on his eyes, her kisses on his lips, such an ache in his heart, Jon leaned in the window, listening to the car bearing her away. Still the scent as of warm strawberries, still the little summer sounds that should make his song; still all the promise of youth and happiness in sighing, floating, fluttering July – and his heart torn; yearning strong in him; hope high in him yet with its eyes cast down, as if ashamed. The miserable task before him! If Fleur was desperate, so was he – watching the poplars swaying, the white clouds passing, the sunlight on the grass.

He waited till evening, till after their almost silent dinner, till his mother had played to him – and still he waited, feeling that she knew what he was waiting to say. She kissed him and went upstairs, and still he lingered, watching the moonlight and the moths, and that unreality of colouring which steals along and stains a summer night. And he would have given anything to be back again in the past – barely three months back; or away forward, years, in the future. The present with this dark cruelty of a decision, one way or the other, seemed impossible. He realized now so much more keenly what his mother felt than he had at first; as if the story in that letter had been a poisonous germ producing a kind of fever of partisanship, so that he really felt there were two camps, his mother’s and his – Fleur’s and her father’s. It might be a dead thing, that old tragic ownership and enmity, but dead things were poisonous till time had cleaned them away. Even his love felt tainted, less illusioned, more of the earth, and with a treacherous lurking doubt less Fleur, like her father, might want to own; not articulate, just a stealing haunt, horribly unworthy, which crept in and about the ardour of his memories, touched with its tarnishing breath the vividness and grace of that charmed face and figure – a doubt, not real enough to convince him of its presence, just real enough to deflower a perfect faith. And perfect faith, to Jon, not yet twenty, was essential. He still had Youth’s eagerness to give with both hands, to take with neither – to give lovingly to one who had his own impulsive generosity. Surely she had! He got up from the window-seat and roamed in the big grey ghostly room, whose walls were hung with silvered canvas. This house – his father said in that death-bed letter – had been built for his mother to live in – with Fleur’s father! He put out his hand in the half-dark, as if to grasp the shadowy hand of the dead. He clenched, trying to feel the thin vanished fingers of his father; to squeeze them, and reassure him that he – he was on his father’s side. Tears, prisoned within him, made his eyes feel dry and hot. He went back to the window. It was warmer, not so eerie, more comforting outside, where the moon hung golden, three days off full; the freedom of the night was comforting. If only Fleur and he had met on some desert island without a past – and Nature for their house! Jon had still his high regard for desert islands, where breadfruit grew, and the water was blue above the coral. The night was deep, was free – there was enticement in it; a lure, a promise, a refuge from entanglement, and love! Milksop tied to his mother’s –! His cheeks burned. He shut the window, drew curtains over it, switched off the lighted sconce, and went upstairs.

The door of his room was open, the light turned up, his mother, still in her evening gown, was standing at the window. She turned and said:

‘Sit down, Jon; let’s talk.’ She sat down on the window-seat, Jon on his bed. She had her profile turned to him, and the beauty and grace of her figure, the delicate line of the brow, the nose, the neck, the strange and as it were remote refinement of her, moved him. His mother never belonged to her surroundings. She came into them from somewhere – as it were! What was she going to say to him, who had in his heart such things to say to her?

‘I know Fleur came today. I’m not surprised.’ It was as though she had added: ‘She is her father’s daughter!’ And Jon’s heart hardened. Irene went on quietly:

‘I have Father’s letter. I picked it up that night and kept it. Would you like it back, dear?’

Jon shook his head.

‘I had read it, of course, before he gave it to you. It didn’t quite do justice to my criminality.’

‘Mother!’ burst from Jon’s lips.

‘He put it very sweetly, but I know that in marrying Fleur’s father without love I did a dreadful thing. An unhappy marriage, Jon, can play such havoc with other lives besides one’s own. You are fearfully young, my darling, and fearfully loving. Do you think you can possibly be happy with this girl?’