The Forsyte Saga(355)

‘It’s rather nice, isn’t it?’

His reply shot out of his smile like a snipped bread pellet:

‘D’you remember, in Frazer, the tribe that buries the bride up to the waist?’

He spoke as fast as anybody! He had dark lively little eyes, too, all crinkled round like a Catholic priest’s. Winifred felt suddenly he might say things she would regret.

‘They’re always so amusing – weddings,’ she murmured, and moved on to Soames. He was curiously still, and Winifred saw at once what was dictating his immobility. To his right was George Forsyte, to his left Annette and Prosper Profond. He could not move without either seeing those two together, or the reflection of them in George Forsyte’s japing eyes. He was quite right not to be taking notice.

‘They say Timothy’s sinking,’ he said glumly.

‘Where will you put him, Soames?’

‘Highgate.’ He counted on his fingers. ‘It’ll make twelve of them there, including wives. How do you think Fleur looks?’

‘Remarkably well.’

Soames nodded. He had never seen her look prettier, yet he could not rid himself of the impression that this business was unnatural – remembering still that crushed figure burrowing into the corner of the sofa. From that night to this day he had received from her no confidences. He knew from his chauffeur that she had made one more attempt on Robin Hill and drawn blank – an empty house, no one at home. He knew that she had received a letter, but not what was in it, except that it had made her hide herself and cry. He had remarked that she looked at him sometimes when she thought he wasn’t noticing, as if she were wondering still what he had done – forsooth – to make those people hate him so. Well, there it was! Annette had come back, and things had worn on through the summer – very miserable, till suddenly Fleur had said she was going to marry young Mont. She had shown him a little more affection when she told him that. And he had yielded – what was the good of opposing it? God knew that he had never wished to thwart her in anything! And the young man seemed quite delirious about her. No doubt she was in a reckless mood, and she was young, absurdly young. But if he opposed her, he didn’t know what she would do; for all he could tell she might want to take up a profession, become a doctor or solicitor, some nonsense. She had no aptitude for painting, writing, music, in his view the legitimate occupations of unmarried women, if they must do something in these days. On the whole, she was safer married, for he could see too well how feverish and restless she was at home. Annette, too, had been in favour of it – Annette, from behind the veil of his refusal to know what she was about, if she was about anything. Annette had said: ‘Let her marry this young man. He is a nice boy – not so highty-flighty as he seems.’ Where she got her expression, he didn’t know – but her opinion soothed his doubts. His wife, whatever her conduct, had clear eyes and an almost depressing amount of common sense. He had settled fifty thousand on Fleur, taking care that there was no cross settlement in case it didn’t turn out well. Could it turn out well? She had not got over that other boy – he knew. They were to go to Spain for the honeymoon. He would be even lonelier when she was gone. But later, perhaps, she would forget, and turn to him again!

Winifred’s voice broke on his reverie.

‘Why? Of all wonders – June!’

There, in a djibbah – what things she wore! – with her hair straying from under a fillet, Soames saw his cousin, and Fleur going forward to greet her. The two passed from their view out on to the stairway.

‘Really,’ said Winifred, ‘she does the most impossible things! Fancy her coming!’

‘What made you ask her?’ muttered Soames.

‘Because I thought she wouldn’t accept, of course.’

Winifred had forgotten that behind conduct lies the main trend of character; or, in other words, omitted to remember that Fleur was now a ‘lame duck’.

On receiving her invitation, June had first thought, ‘I wouldn’t go near them for the world!’ and then, one morning, had awakened from a dream of Fleur waving to her from a boat with a wild unhappy gesture. And she had changed her mind.

When Fleur came forward and said to her, ‘Do come up while I’m changing my dress,’ she had followed up the stairs. The girl led the way into Imogen’s old bedroom, set ready for her toilet.

June sat down on the bed, thin and upright, like a little spirit in the sear and yellow. Fleur locked the door.

The girl stood before her divested of her wedding-dress. What a pretty thing she was!