The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(220)

The first day spent stoking an engine had been enough to make anyone smile. An engine-driver almost as youthful, but in private life partner in his own engineering works, had put Jon ‘wise’ to the mystery of getting level combustion. ‘A tricky job, and very tiring!’ Their passengers had behaved well. One had even come up and thanked them. The engine-driver had winked at Jon. There had been some hectic moments. Supping pea soup, Jon thought of them with pleasure. It had been great sport, but his hands and arms felt wrenched. ‘Oil them tonight,’ the engine-driver had said.

A young woman was handing him ‘jacket’ potatoes. She had marvellously clear, brown eyes, something like Anne’s – only Anne’s were like a water nymph’s. He took a potato, thanked her, and returned to a stoker’s dreams. Extraordinary pleasure in being up against it – being in England again, doing something for England! One had to leave one’s country to become conscious of it. Anne had telegraphed that she wanted to come over and join him. If he wired back ‘no’, she would come all the same. He knew that much after nearly two years of marriage. Well, she would see England at its best. Americans didn’t really know what England was. Her brother had seen nothing but London; he had spoken bitterly – a girl, Jon supposed, though nothing had been said of her. In Francis Wilmot’s history of England the gap accounted for the rest. But everybody ran down England, because she didn’t slop over, or blow her own trumpet.

‘Butter?’

‘Thanks, awfully. These potatoes are frightfully good.’

‘So glad.’

‘Who runs this canteen?’

‘Mr and Mrs Michael Mont mostly; he’s a Member of Parliament.’

Jon dropped his potato.

‘Mrs Mont? Gracious! She’s a cousin of mine. Is she here?’

‘Was. Just gone, I think.’

Jon’s far-sighted eyes travelled round the large and dingy room. Fleur! How amazing!

‘Treacle pudding?’

‘No, thanks. Nothing more.’

‘There’ll be coffee, tea, or cocoa, and eggs and bacon, tomorrow row at 5-45.’

‘Splendid! I think it’s wonderful.’

‘It is, rather, in the time.’

‘Thank you awfully. Good-Night!’

Jon sought his coat. Outside were Val and Holly in their car.

‘Hallo, young Jon! You’re a nice object.’

‘What job have you caught, Val?’

‘Motor-lorry – begin tomorrow.’

‘Fine!’

‘This’ll knock out racing for a bit.’

‘But not England.’

‘England? Lord – no! What did you think?’

‘Abroad they were saying so.’

‘Abroad!’ growled Val. ‘They would!’

And there was silence at thirty miles an hour.

From his bedroom door Jon said to his sister:

‘They say Fleur runs that canteen. Is she really so old now?’

‘Fleur has a very clear head, my dear. She saw you there. No second go of measles, Jon.’

Jon laughed.

‘Aunt Winifred,’ said Holly, ‘will be delighted to have Anne here on Friday, she told me to tell you.’

‘Splendid! That’s awfully good of her.’

‘Well, good night; bless you. There’s still hot water in the bathroom.’

In his bath Jon lay luxuriously still. Sixty hours away from his young wife, he was already looking forward with impatience to her appearance on Friday. And so Fleur ran that canteen! A fashionable young woman with a clear and, no doubt, shingled head – he felt a great curiosity to see her again, but nothing more. Second go of measles! Not much! He had suffered too severely from the first. Besides, he was too glad to be back – result, half-acknowledged home-sickness. His mother had been homesick for Europe; but he had felt no assuagement in Italy and France. It was England he had wanted. Something in the way people walked and talked; in the smell and the look of everything; some good-humoured, slow, ironic essence in the air, after the tension of America, the shrillness of Italy, the clarity of Paris. For the first time in five years his nerves felt coated. Even those features of his native land which offended the aesthetic soul were comforting. The approaches to London, the countless awful little houses, of brick and slate which his own great-grandfather ‘Superior Dosset’ Forsyte, had helped, so his father had once told him, to build; the many little new houses, rather better but still bent on compromise; the total absence of symmetry or plan; the ugly railway stations; the cockney voices, the lack of colour, taste, or pride in people’s dress – all seemed comfortable, a guarantee that England would always be England.