The Forsyte Saga(352)

Light had ceased to flow out now from the drawing-room window. All was silent and dark in there. Had she gone up? He rose, and, tiptoeing, peered in. It seemed so! He entered. The verandah kept the moonlight out; and at first he could see nothing but the outlines of furniture blacker than the darkness. He groped toward the farther window to shut it. His foot struck a chair, and he heard a gasp. There she was, curled and crushed into the corner of the sofa! His hand lowered. Did she want his consolation? He stood, gazing at that ball of crushed frills and hair and graceful youth, trying to burrow its way out of sorrow. How leave her there? At last he touched her hair, and said:

‘Come, darling, better go to bed. I’ll make it up for you, somehow.’ How fatuous! But what could he have said?





Chapter Nine



UNDER THE OAK TREE





WHEN their visitor had disappeared Jon and his mother stood without speaking, till he said suddenly:

‘I ought to have seen him out.’

But Soames was already walking down the drive, and Jon went upstairs to his father’s studio, not trusting himself to go back.

The expression on his mother’s face confronting the man she had once been married to, had sealed a resolution growing within him ever since she left him the night before. It had put the finishing touch of reality. To marry Fleur would be to hit his mother in the face; to betray his dead father It was no good! Jon had the least resentful of natures. He bore his parents no grudge in this hour of distress. For one so young there was a rather strange power in him of seeing things in some sort of proportion. It was worse for Fleur, worse for his mother even, than it was for him. Harder than to give up was to be given up, or to be the cause of someone you loved giving up for you.

He must not, would not behave grudgingly! While he stood watching the tardy sunlight, he had again that sudden vision of the world which had come to him the night before. Sea on sea, country on country, millions on millions of people, all with their own lives, energies, joys, griefs, and suffering – all with things they had to give up, and separate struggles for existence. Even though he might be willing to give up all else for the one thing he couldn’t have, he would be a fool to think his feelings mattered much in so vast a world and to behave like a cry-baby or a cad. He pictured the people who had nothing – the millions who had given up life in the War, the millions whom the War had left with life and little else; the hungry children he had read of, the shattered men; people in prison, every kind of unfortunate. And – they did not help him much. If one had to miss a meal, what comfort in the knowledge that many others had to miss it too? There was more distraction in the thought of getting away out into this vast world of which he knew nothing yet. He could not go on staying here, walled in and sheltered, with everything so slick and comfortable, and nothing to do but brood and think what might have been. He could not go back to Wansdon, and the memories of Fleur. If he saw her again he could not trust himself; and if he stayed here or went back there, he would surely see her. While they were within reach of each other that must happen. To go far away and quickly was the only thing to do. But, however much he loved his mother, he did not want to go away with her. Then feeling that he was brutal, he made up his mind desperately to propose that they should go to Italy. For two hours in that melancholy room he tried to master himself, then dressed solemnly for dinner.

His mother had done the same. They ate little, at some length, and talked of his father’s catalogue. The show was arranged for October, and beyond clerical detail there was nothing more to do.

After dinner she put on a cloak and they went out; walked a little, talked a little, till they were standing silent at last beneath the oak tree. Ruled by the thought: ‘If I show anything, I show all,’ Jon put his arm through hers and said quite casually:

‘Mother, let’s go to Italy.’

Irene pressed his arm, and said as casually:

‘It would be very nice; but I’ve been thinking you ought to see and do more than you would if I were with you.’

‘But then you’d be alone.’

‘I was once alone for more than twelve years. Besides, I should like to be here for the opening of Father’s show.’

Jon’s grip tightened round her arm; he was not deceived.

‘You couldn’t stay here all by yourself; it’s too big.’

‘Not here, perhaps. In London, and I might go to Paris, after the show opens. You ought to have a year at least, Jon, and see the world.’

‘Yes, I’d like to see the world and rough it. But I don’t want to leave you all alone.’

‘My dear, I owe you that at least. If it’s for your good, it’ll be for mine. Why not start tomorrow? You’ve got your passport.’