The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(314)

‘Yes; and when you’ve had your tea, I want you to come straight on with me to “The Shelter” – Riggs’ll put your car away.’

She shrugged her shoulders and passed him into the house. It seemed to him that she did not care what he saw in her, or what he thought of her. And this was so strange in Fleur that he was confounded. Had she tried and failed? Could it mean anything so good? He searched his memory to recall how she had looked when he brought her back the news of failure six years ago. Yes! Only then she was so young, her face so round – not like this hardened, sharpened, burnt-up face, that frightened him. Get her away to Kit! Get her away, and quickly! And with that saving instinct of his where Fleur only was concerned, he summoned Riggs, told him to close the car and bring it round.

She had gone up to her room. He sent up a message presently that the car was ready. Soon she came down. She had coated her face with powder and put salve on her lips; and again Soames was shocked by that white mask with compressed red line of mouth, and the live and tortured eyes. And again he said nothing, and got out a map.

‘That fellow will go wrong unless I sit beside him. It’s cross-country’; and he mounted the front of the car. He knew she couldn’t talk, and that he couldn’t bear to see her face. So they started. An immense time they travelled thus, it seemed to him. Once or twice only he looked round to see her sitting like something dead, so white and motionless. And, within him, the two feelings – relief and pity, continued to struggle. Surely it was the end – she had played her hand and lost! How, where, when – he felt would always be unknown to him; but she had lost! Poor little thing! Not her fault that she had loved this boy, that she couldn’t get him out of her head – no more her fault than it had been his own for loving that boy’s mother! Only everyone’s misfortune! It was as if that passion, born of an ill-starred meeting in a Bournemouth drawing-room forty-six years before, and transmitted with his blood into her being, were singing its swan-song of death, through the silent crimsoned lips of that white-faced girl behind him in the cushioned car. ‘Praise thou the Lord, O my soul! Praise the Lord!’ Um! How could one! They were crossing the river at Staines – from now on that fellow knew his road. When they got home, how should he bring some life into her face again? Thank goodness her mother was away! Surely Kit would be some use! And her old dog, perhaps. And yet, tired though he was after his three long days, Soames dreaded the moment when the car should stop. To drive on and on, perhaps, was the thing for her. Perhaps, for all the world, now. To get away from something that couldn’t be got away from – ever since the war – driving on! When you couldn’t have what you wanted, and yet couldn’t let go; and drove, on and on, to dull the aching. Resignation – like painting – was a lost art; or so it seemed to Soames, as they passed the graveyard where he expected to be buried some day.

Close home now, and what was he going to say to her when they got out? Words were so futile. He put his head out of the window and took some deep breaths. It smelled better down here by the river than elsewhere, he always thought – more sap in the trees, more savour in the grass. Not the equal of the air on ‘Great Forsyte’, but more of the earth, more cosy. The gables and the poplars, the scent of a wood fire, the last flight of the doves – here they were! And with a long sigh, he got out.

‘You’ve been doing too much,’ he said, opening the door. ‘Would you like to go straight up to bed when you’ve seen Kit? I’ll send up your dinner.’

‘Thanks, Dad. Some soup is all I shall want. I’ve got a chill, I think.’

Soames looked at her deeply for a moment and shook his head; then, touching her whitened cheek with a finger, he turned away.

He went round to the stables and released her old dog. It might want a run before being let into the house; and he took it down towards the river. A thin daylight lingered, though the sun had set some time, and while the dog freshened himself among the bushes, Soames stood looking at the water. The swans passed over to their islet while he gazed. The young ones were growing up – were almost white. Rather ghostly in the dusk, the flotilla passed – graceful things and silent. He had often thought of going in for a peacock or two, they put a finish on a garden, but they were noisy; he had never forgotten an early morning in Montpelier Square, hearing their cry, as of lost passion, from Hyde Park. No! The swan was better; just as graceful and didn’t sing. That dog was ruining his dwarf arbutus.

‘Come along to your mistress!’ he said, and turned back toward the lighted house. He went up into the picture gallery. On the bureau were laid a number of letters and things to be attended to. For half an hour he laboured at them. He had never torn up things with greater satisfaction. Then the gong sounded, and he went down to be lonely, as he supposed.