‘Good-bye, Mr Greene,’ he said; ‘I’ve got no time.’
‘Quite, sir,’ said Aubrey Greene.
‘Quite!’ mimicked Soames to himself, going out.
Aubrey Greene took his departure a few minutes later, crossing a lady in the hall who was delivering her name to the manservant.
Alone with her body, Fleur again passed her hands all over it. The ‘altogether’ – was a reminder of the dangers of dramatic conduct.
Chapter Five
FLEUR’S SOUL
‘MRS VAL DARTIE, ma’am.’
A name which could not be distorted even by Coaker affected her like a finger applied suddenly to the head of the sciatic nerve. Holly! Not seen since the day when she did not marry Jon. Holly! A flood of remembrance – Wansdon, the Downs, the gravel pit, the apple orchard, the river, the copse at Robin Hill! No! It was not a pleasant sensation – to see Holly, and she said: ‘How awfully nice of you to come!’
‘I met your husband this afternoon at Green Street; he asked me. What a lovely room!’
‘Ting! Come and be introduced! This is Ting-a-ling; isn’t he perfect? He’s a little upset because of the new monkey. How’s Val, and dear Wansdon? It was too wonderfully peaceful.’
‘It’s a nice backwater. I don’t get tired of it.’
‘And –’ said Fleur, with a little laugh, ‘Jon?’
‘He’s growing peaches in North Carolina. British Columbia didn’t do.’
‘Oh! Is he married?’
‘No.’
‘I suppose he’ll marry an American.’
‘He isn’t twenty-two, you know.’
‘Good Lord!’ said Fleur: ‘Am I only twenty-one? I feel forty-eight.’
‘That’s living in the middle of things and seeing so many people –’
‘And getting to know none.’
‘But don’t you?’
‘No, it isn’t done. I mean we all call each other by our Christian names; but après –’
‘I like your husband very much.’
‘Oh! yes, Michael’s a dear. How’s June?’
‘I saw her yesterday – she’s got a new painter, of course – Claud Brains. I believe he’s what they call a Vertiginist.’
Fleur bit her lip.
‘Yes, they’re quite common. I suppose June thinks he’s the only one.’
‘Well, she thinks he’s a genius.’
‘She’s wonderful.’
‘Yes,’ said Holly, ‘the most loyal creature in the world while it lasts. It’s like poultry farming – once they’re hatched. You never saw Boris Strumolowski?’
‘No.’
‘Well, don’t.’
‘I know his bust of Michael’s uncle. It’s rather sane.’
‘Yes. June throught it a pot-boiler, and he never forgave her. Of course it was. As soon as her swan makes money, she looks round for another. She’s a darling.’
‘Yes,’ murmured Fleur; ‘I liked June.’
Another flood of remembrance – from a tea-shop, from the river, from June’s little dining-room, from where in Green Street she had changed her wedding dress under the upward gaze of June’s blue eyes. She seized the monkey and held it up.
‘Isn’t it a picture of “life”?’ Would she have said that if Aubrey Greene hadn’t? Still it seemed very true at the moment.
‘Poor monkey!’ said Holly. ‘I’m always frightfully sorry for monkeys. But it’s marvellous, I think.’
‘Yes. I’m going to hang it here. If I can get one more I shall have done in this room; only people have so got on to Chinese things. This was luck – somebody died – George Forsyte, you know, the racing one.’
‘Oh!’ said Holly softly. She saw again her old kinsman’s japing eyes in the church when Fleur was being married, heard his throaty whisper: ‘Will she stay the course?’ And was she staying it, this pretty filly? ‘Wish she could get a rest. If only there were a desert handy!’ Well, one couldn’t ask a question so personal, and Holly took refuge in a general remark.
‘What do all you smart young people feel about life, nowadays, Fleur! when one’s not of it and has lived twenty years in South Africa, one still feels out of it.’
‘Life! Oh! well, we know it’s supposed to be a riddle, but we’ve given it up. We just want to have a good time because we don’t believe anything can last. But I don’t think we know how to have it. We just fly on, and hope for it. Of course, there’s art, but most of us aren’t artists; besides, expressionism – Michael says it’s got no inside. We gas about it, but I suppose it hasn’t. I see a frightful lot of writers and painters, you know; they’re supposed to be amusing.’