The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(172)

MacGown raised her hand to his lips; and somehow the caress touched her.

‘Oh! well,’ she said, ‘I suppose you’d better.’

‘Thank God!’

‘Do you really think that to get me is a cause for gratitude?’

‘I would go through Hell to get you.’

‘And after? Well, as we’re public property, let’s go down and dance.’

For an hour she danced. She would not let him take her home, and in her cab she cried. She wrote to Francis when she got in. She went out again to post it. The bitter stars, the bitter wind, the bitter night! At the little slurred thump of her letter dropping, she laughed. To have played at children! It was too funny! So that was done with! ‘On with the dance!’

Extraordinary, the effect of a little paragraph in the papers! Credit, like new-struck oil, spurted sky-high. Her post contained, not bills for dresses, but solicitations to feed, frizz, fur, flower, feather, furbelow, and photograph her. London offered itself. To escape that cynical avalanche she borrowed a hundred pounds and flew to Paris. There, every night, she went to the theatre. She had her hair done in a new style, she ordered dresses, ate at places known to the few – living it up to Michael’s nickname for her; and her heart was heavy.

She returned after a week, and burned the avalanche – fortunately all letters of congratulation contained the phrase ‘of course you won’t think of answering this.’ She didn’t. The weather was mild; she rode in the Row; she prepared to hunt. On the eve of departure, she received an anonymous communication.

‘Francis Wilmot is very ill with pneumonia at the Cosmopolis Hotel. He is not expected to live.’

Her heart flurried round within her breast and flumped; her knees felt weak; her hand holding the note shook; only her head stayed steady. The handwriting was ‘that little snob’s’. Had Francis caused this message to be sent? Was it his appeal? Poor boy! And must she go and see him if he were going to die? She so hated death. Did this mean that it was up to her to save him? What did it mean? But indecision was not her strong point. In ten minutes she was in a cab, in twenty at the hotel. Handing her card, she said:

‘You have a Mr Wilmot here – a relative of mine. I’ve just heard of his serious illness. Can I go up and see the nurse?’

The management looked at the card, inquisitively at her face, touched a bell, and said:

‘Certainly, madam…. Here, you – take this lady up to room – er – 209.’

Led by what poor Francis called a ‘bell-boy’ into the lift, she walked behind his buttons along a pale-grey river of corridor carpet, between pale-grey walls, past cream-coloured after cream-coloured door in the bright electric light, with her head a little down.

The ‘bell-boy’ knocked ruthlessly on a door.

It was opened and in the lobby of the suite stood Fleur.…





Chapter Twelve



DEEPENING



HOWEVER untypically American according to Soames, Francis Wilmot seemed to have the national passion for short cuts.

In two days from Fleur’s first visit he had reached the crisis, hurrying towards it like a man to his bride. Yet, compared with the instinct to live, the human will is limited, so that he failed to die. Fleur, summoned by telephone, went home cheered by the doctor’s words: ‘He’ll do now, if we can coax a little strength into him.’ That, however, was the trouble. For three afternoons she watched his exhausted indifference seeming to increase. And she was haunted by cruel anxiety. On the fourth day she had been sitting for more than an hour when his eyes opened.

‘Yes, Francis?’

‘I’m going to quit all right, after all.’

‘Don’t talk like that – it’s not American. Of course you’re not going to quit.’

He smiled, and shut his eyes. She made up her mind then.

Next day he was about the same, more dead than alive. But her mind was at rest; her messenger had brought back word that Miss Ferrar would be in at four o’clock. She would have had the note by now; but would she come? How little one knew of other people, even when they were enemies!

He was drowsing, white and strengthless, when she heard the ‘bell-boy’s’ knock. Passing into the lobby, she closed the door softly behind her, and opened the outer door. So she had come!

If this meeting of two declared enemies had in it something dramatic, neither perceived it at the moment. It was just intensely unpleasant to them both. They stood for a moment looking at each other’s chins. Then Fleur said:

‘He’s extremely weak. Will you sit down while I tell him you’re here?’

Having seen her settled where Francis Wilmot put his clothes out to be valeted in days when he had worn them, Fleur passed back into the bedroom, and again closed the door.