The Forsyte Saga Volume 2(324)

So the days and nights passed. On the third day about three o’clock, while she stood there beside him, she saw the eyes open – a falling apart of the lids, indeed, rather than an opening, and no speculation in the gaps; but her heart beat fast. The nurse, summoned by her finger, came, looked, and went quickly to the telephone. And Fleur stood there with her soul in her eyes, trying to summon his. It did not come, the lids drooped again. She drew up a chair and sat down, not taking her eyes off his face. The nurse came back to say that the doctor was on his rounds; as soon as he came in he would be sent to them post-haste. As her father would have said: ‘Of course, “that fellow” wasn’t in when he was wanted!’ But it would make no difference. They knew what to do. It was nearly four when again the lids were raised, and this time something looked forth. Fleur could not be sure that he saw anything particular, recognized her or any other object, but there was something there, some flickering light, trying to focus. Slowly it strengthened, then went out again between the lids. They gave him stimulant. And again she sat down to watch. In half an hour his eyes re-opened. This time he saw! And for torturing minutes Fleur watched a being trying to be, a mind striving to obey the mandate of instinctive will power. Bending so that those eyes, which she now knew recognized her, should have the least possible effort, she waited with her lips trembling, as if in a kiss. The extraordinary tenacity of that struggle to come back terrified her. He meant to know and hear and speak. It was as if he must die from the sheer effort of it. She murmured to him. She put her hand under his cold hand, so that if he made the faintest pressure she would feel it She watched his lips desperately. At last that struggle for coherence ceased, the half-blank, half-angry look yielded to something deeper, the lips moved. They said nothing, but they moved, and the faintest tremor passed from his finger into hers.

‘You know me, darling?’

His eyes said: ‘Yes.’

‘You remember?’

Again his eyes said: ‘yes.’

His lips were twitching all the time, as if rehearsing for speech, and the look in his eyes deepening. She saw his brows frown faintly, as if her face were too close; drew back a little and the frown relaxed.

‘Darling, you are going to be all right.’

His eyes said: ‘No’; and his lips moved, but she could not distinguish the sound. For a moment she lost control, and said with a sob:

‘Dad, forgive me!’

His eyes softened; and this time she caught what sounded like:

‘Forgive? Nonsense!’

‘I love you so.’

He seemed to abandon the effort to speak then, and centred all the life of him in his eyes. Deeper and deeper grew the colour and the form and the meaning in them, as if to compel something from her. And suddenly, like a little girl, she said:

‘Yes, Dad; I will be good!

A tremor from his finger passed into her palm; his lips seemed trying to smile, his head moved as if he had meant to nod, and always that look deepened in his eyes.

‘Gradman is here, darling, and Mother, and Aunt Winifred, and Kit and Michael. Is there anyone you would like to see?’

His lips shaped: ‘No – you!’

‘I am here all the time.’ Again she felt the tremor from his fingers, saw his lips whispering:

‘That’s all.’

And suddenly, his eyes went out. There was nothing there! For some time longer he breathed, but before ‘that fellow’ came, he had lost hold – was gone.





Chapter Sixteen



FULL CLOSE



IN accordance with all that was implicit in Soames there was no fuss over his funeral. For a long time now, indeed, he had been the only one of the family at all interested in obsequies.

It was then, a very quiet affair, only men attending.

Sir Lawrence had come down, graver than Michael had ever known him.

‘I respected old Forsyte,’ he said to his son, while they returned on foot from the graveyard, where, in the corner selected by himself, Soames now lay, under a crab-apple tree. ‘He dated, and he couldn’t express himself; but there was no humbug about him – an honest man. How is Fleur bearing up?’

Michael shook his head. ‘It’s terrible for her to think that he – ’

‘My dear boy, there’s no better death than dying to save the one you’re fondest of. As soon as you can, let us have Fleur at Lippinghall – where her father and her family never were. I’ll get Hilary and his wife down for a holiday – she likes them.’

‘I’m very worried about her, Dad – something’s broken.’

‘That happens to most of us, before we’re thirty. Some spring or other goes; but presently we get our second winds. It’s what happened to the Age – something broke and it hasn’t yet got its second wind. But it’s getting it, and so will she. What sort of a stone are you going to put up?’