The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(234)

And now she could not even walk beside him, who was playing guide to that girl, his wife! Beside her aunt she walked instead. Winifred was extremely intrigued. She had never yet seen this house, which Soames had built with the brains of young Bosinney; which Irene, with ‘that unfortunate little affair of hers’ had wrecked; this house where Old Uncle Jolyon and Cousin Jolyon had died; and Irene, so ironically, had lived and had this boy Jon – a nice boy, too; this house of Forsyte song and story. It was very distinguished and belonged to a peer now, which, since it had gone out of the family, seemed suitable. In the walled fruit-garden, she said to Fleur:

‘Your grandfather came down here once, to see how it was getting on. I remember his saying: “It’ll cost a pretty penny to keep up.” And I should think it does. But it was a pity to sell it. Irene’s doing, of course! She never cared for the family. Now, if only –’ But she stopped short of the words: ‘you and Jon had made a match of it.’

‘What on earth would Jon have done, Auntie, with a great place like this so near London? He’s a poet.’

‘Yes,’ murmured Winifred – not very quick, because in her youth quickness had not been fashionable: ‘There’s too much glass, perhaps.’ And they went down through the meadow.

The coppice! Still there at the bottom of the field! But Fleur lingered now, stood by the fallen log, waited till she could say:

‘Listen! The cuckoo, Jon!’

The cuckoo’s song, and the sight of bluebells under the larch trees! Beside her Jon stood still! Yes, and the spring stood still. There went the song – over and over!

‘It was here we came on your mother, Jon, and our stars were crossed. Oh, Jon!’

Could so short a sound mean so much, say so much, be so startling? His face! She jumped on to the log at once.

‘No ghosts, my dear!’

And, with a start, Jon looked up at her.

She put her hands on his shoulders and jumped down. And among the bluebells they went on. And the bird sang after them.

‘That bird repeats himself,’ said Fleur.





Chapter Eleven



PERAMBULATION



THE instinct in regard to his daughter, which by now formed part of his protective covering against the machinations of Fate, had warned Soames, the day before, that Fleur was up to something when she went out while he was having breakfast. Seen through the window waving papers at him, she had an air of unreality, or at least an appearance of not telling him anything. As something not quite genuine in the voice warns a dog that he is about to be left, so was Soames warned by the ostentation of those papers. He finished his breakfast, therefore, too abruptly for one constitutionally given to marmalade, and set forth to Green Street. Since that young fellow Jon was staying there, this fashionable locality was the seat of any reasonable uneasiness. If, moreover, there was a place in the world where Soames could still unbutton his soul, it was his sister Winifred’s drawing-room, on which in 1879 he himself had impressed so deeply the personality of Louis Quinze that, in spite of jazz and Winifred’s desire to be in the heavier modern fashion, that monarch’s incurable levity was still to be observed.

Taking a somewhat circuitous course and looking in at the Connoisseur’s Club on the way, Soames did not arrive until after Fleur’s departure. The first remark from Smither confirmed the uneasiness which had taken him forth.

‘Mr Soames! Oh! What a pity – Miss Fleur’s just gone! And nobody down yet but Mr Jon.’

‘Oh!’ said Soames. ‘Did she see him?’

‘Yes, sir. He’s in the dining-room, if you’d like to go in.’

Soames shook his head.

‘How long are they staying, Smither?’

‘Well, I did hear Mrs Val say they were all going back to Wansdon the day after to-morrow. We shall be all alone again in case you were thinking of coming to us, Mr Soames.’

Again Soames shook his head. ‘Too busy,’ he said.

‘What a beautiful young lady Miss Fleur ‘as grown, to be sure; such a colour she ‘ad this morning!’

Soames gave vent to an indeterminate sound. The news was not to his liking, but he could hardly say so in front of an institution. One could never tell how much Smither knew. She had creaked her way through pretty well every family secret in her time, from the days when his own matrimonial relations supplied Timothy’s with more than all the gossip it required. Yes, and were not his own matrimonial relations, twice-laid, still supplying the raw material? Curiously sinister it seemed to him just then, that the son of his supplanter Jolyon should be here in this house, the nearest counterfeit of that old homing centre of the Forsytes, Timothy’s in the Bayswater Road. What perversity there was in things! And, repeating the indeterminate sound, he said: