‘This is where I put in my clutch,’ she said, ‘as they say in the “bloods”!’ And through Epsom and Leatherhead they travelled in silence.
‘Do you love England as much as ever, Jon?’
‘More.’
‘It is a gorgeous country.’
‘The last word I should have used – a great and lovely country.’
‘Michael says its soul is grass.’
‘Yes, and if I get my farm, I’ll break some up, all right.’
‘I can’t see you as a real farmer.’
‘You can’t see me as a real anything – I suppose. Just an amateur.’
‘Don’t be horrid! I mean you’re too sensitive to be a farmer.’
‘No. I want to get down to the earth, and I will.’
‘You must be a throw-back, Jon. The primeval Forsytes were farmers. My father wants to take me down and show me where they lived.’
‘Have you jumped at it?’
‘I’m not sentimental; haven’t you realized that? I wonder if you’ve realized anything about me?’ And drooping forward over her wheel, she murmured ‘Oh! It’s a pity we have to talk like this!’
‘I said it wouldn’t work!’
‘No, you’ve got to let me see you sometimes, Jon. This is harmless enough. I must and will see you now and then. It’s owed to me!’
Tears stood in her eyes, and rolled slowly down. She felt Jon touch her arm.
‘Oh; Fleur, don’t!’
‘I’ll put you out at North Dorking now, you’ll just catch the five-forty-six. That’s my house. Next time I must show you over it. I’m trying to be good, Jon; and you must help me…. Well, here we are! Good-bye, dear Jon; and don’t worry Anne about me, I beseech you!’
A hard hand-grip, and he was gone. Fleur turned from the station and drove slowly back along the road.
She put away the car, and entered her ‘Rest House’. It was full, late holiday time still, and seven young women were resting limbs, tired out in the service of ‘Petter, Poplin’, and their like.
They were at supper, and a cheery buzz assailed Fleur’s ears. These girls had nothing, and she had everything, except – the one thing that she chiefly wanted. For a moment she felt ashamed, listening to their talk and laughter. No! She would not change with them – and yet without that one thing she felt as if she could not live. And, while she went about the house, sifting the flowers, ordering for tomorrow, inspecting the bedrooms, laughter, cheery and uncontrolled, floated up and seemed to mock her.
Chapter Five
MORE TALK IN A CAR
JON had too little sense of his own importance to be simultaneously loved with comfort to himself by two pretty and attractive young women. He drove home from Pulborough, where now daily he parked Val’s car, with a sore heart and a mind distraught. He had seen Fleur six times since his return to England, in a sort of painful crescendo. That dance with her had disclosed to him her state of heart, but still he did not suspect her of consciously pursuing him; and no amount of heart-searching seemed to make his own feelings clearer. Ought he to tell Anne about to-day’s meeting? In many small and silent ways she had shown that she was afraid of Fleur. Why add to her fears without real cause? The portrait was not his own doing, and only for the next few days was he likely to be seeing Fleur. After that they would meet, perhaps, two or three times a year. ‘Don’t tell Anne – I beseech you!’ Could he tell her after that? Surely he owed Fleur that much consideration. She had never consented to give him up; she had not fallen in love with Michael, as he with Anne. Still undecided, he reached Wansdon. His mother had once said to him: ‘You must never tell a lie, Jon, your face will always give you away.’ And so, though he did not tell Anne, her eyes following him about noted that he was keeping something from her. Her cold was in the bronchial stage, so that she was still upstairs, and tense from lack of occupation. Jon came up early again after dinner, and began to read to her. He read from The Worst Journey in the World, and on her side she lay with her face pillowed on her arm and watched him over it. The smoke of a wood fire, the scent of balsamic remedies, the drone of his own voice, retailing that epic of a penguin’s egg, drowsed him till the book dropped from his hand.
‘Have a snooze, Jon, you’re tired.’ Jon lay back, but he did not snooze. He thought instead. In this girl, his wife, he knew well that there was what her brother, Francis Wilmot, called ‘sand’. She knew how to be silent when shoes pinched. He had watched her making up her mind that she was in danger; and now it seemed to him that she was biding her time. Anne always knew what she wanted. She had a singleness of purpose not confused like Fleur’s by the currents of modernity, and she was resolute. Youth in her South Carolinian home had been simple and self-reliant; and unlike most American girls, she had not had too good a time. It had been a shock to her, he knew, that she was not his first love and that his first love was still in love with him. She had shown her uneasiness at once, but now, he felt, she had closed her guard. And Jon could not help knowing, too, that she was still deeply in love with him for all that they had been married two years. He had often heard that American girls seldom really knew the men they married; but it seemed to him sometimes that Anne knew him better than he knew himself. If so, what did she know? What was he? He wanted to do something useful with his life; he wanted to be loyal and kind. But was it all just wanting? Was he a fraud? Not what she thought him? It was all confused and heavy in his mind, like the air in the room. No use thinking! Better to snooze, as Anne said – better to snooze! He woke and said: