‘Depends on how they treat me. If they’re going to clap on any more death duties, I shall revoke the bequest.’
‘The principle of our ancestors, eh? Voluntary service, or none. Great fellows, our ancestors.’
‘I don’t know about yours,’ said Soames; ‘mine were just yeomen. I’m going down to have a look at them tomorrow,’ he added defiantly.
‘Splendid! I hope you’ll find them at home.’
‘We’re late,’ said Soames, glancing in at the dining-room window, where the committee were glancing out. ‘Half-past six! What a funny lot they look!’
‘We always look a funny lot,’ said Sir Lawrence, following him into the house, ‘except to ourselves. That’s the first principle of existence, Forsyte.’
Chapter Seven
TOMORROW
FLEUR met them in the hall. After dropping Jon at Dorking she had exceeded the limit homewards, that she might appear to have nothing in her thoughts but the welfare of the slums. ‘The squire’ being among his partridges, the bishop was in the chair. Fleur went to the sideboard, and, while Michael was reading the minutes, began pouring out the tea. The bishop, Sir Godfrey Bedwin, Mr Montross, her father-in-law, and herself drank China tea; Sir Timothy – whisky and soda; Michael nothing; the Marquess, Hilary, and her father Indian tea; and each maintained that the others were destroying their digestions. Her father, indeed, was always telling her that she only drank China tea because it was the fashion – she couldn’t possibly like it. While she apportioned their beverages she wondered what they would think if they knew what, besides tea, was going on within her. Tomorrow was jon’s last sitting and she was going ‘over the top!’ All the careful possessing of her soul these two months since she had danced with him at Nettlefold would by this time tomorrow be ended. Tomorrow at this hour she would claim her own. The knowledge that there must be two parties to any contract did not trouble her. She had the faith of a pretty woman in love. What she willed would be accomplished, but none should know it! And, handing her cups, she smiled, pitying the ignorance of these wise old men. They should not know, nor anyone else, least of all the young man who last night had held her in his arms. And, thinking of one not yet so holding her, she sat down by the hearth, with her tea and her tablets, while her pulses throbbed and her half-closed eyes saw Jon’s face turned round to her from the station door. Fulfilment! She, like Jacob, had served seven years – for the fulfilment of her love – seven long, long years! And – while she sat there listening to the edgeless booming of the bishop and Sir Godfrey, to the random ejaculations of Sir Timothy, to her father’s close and cautious comments – that something clear, precise, unflinching, woven into her nature with French blood, silently perfected the machinery of the stolen life, that should begin tomorrow after they had eaten of forbidden fruit. A stolen life was a safe life if there were no chicken-hearted hesitation, no squeamishness, and no remorse! She might have experienced a dozen stolen lives already from the certainty she felt about that. She alone would arrange – Jon should be spared all. And no one should know!
‘Fleur, would you take a note of that?’
‘Yes.’
And she wrote down on her tablets: ‘Ask Michael what I was to take a note of.’
‘Mrs Mont!’
‘Yes, Sir Timothy?’
‘Could you get up one of those what d’you call ‘ems for us?’
‘Matinees?’
‘No, no – jumble sales, don’t they call ‘em.’
‘Certainly.’
The more she got up for them the more impeccable her reputation, the greater her freedom, and the more she would deserve, and ironically enjoy, her stolen life.
Hilary speaking now. What would he think if he knew?
‘But I think we ought to have a matinee, Fleur. The public are so good, they’ll always pay a guinea to go to what most of them would give a guinea any day not to go to. What do you say, Bishop?’
‘A matinee – by all means!’
‘Matinees – dreadful things!’
‘Not if we got a pleasant play, Mr Forsyte – something a little old-fashioned – one of L.S.D.’s. It would advertise us, you know. What do you think, Lord Shropshire?’
‘My granddaughter Marjorie would get one up for you. It would do her good.’
‘H’m. if she gets it up, it won’t be old-fashioned.’ And Fleur saw her father’s face turning towards her as he spoke. If only he knew how utterly she was beyond all that; how trivial to her seemed that heart-burning of the past.