The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(171)

Fleur’s face became watchful. She was twenty-nine, Jean twenty-three; but it was no use coming the elder matron!

‘I haven’t seen anything of Wilfrid for a long time.’

‘Somebody’s got to tell him pretty sharply what’ll be thought of him if he lugs Dinny into this mess.’

‘I’m by no means sure there’ll be a mess; even if his poem comes out. People like the Ajax touch.’

‘You’ve not been in the East.’

‘Yes, I have; I’ve been round the world.’

‘That’s not the same thing at all.’

‘My dear,’ said Fleur, ‘excuse my saying so, but the Cherrells are about thirty years behind the times.’

‘I’m not a Cherrell.’

‘No, you’re a Tasburgh, and, if anything, that’s a little worse. Country rectories, cavalry, navy, Indian civil – how much d’you suppose all that counts nowadays?’

‘It counts with those who belong to it; and he belongs to it, and Dinny belongs to it.’

‘No one who’s really in love belongs anywhere,’ said Fleur. ‘Did you care two straws when you married Hubert with a murder charge hanging over his head?’

‘That’s different. He’d done nothing to be ashamed of.’

Fleur smiled.

‘True to type. Would it surprise you, as they say in the courts, if I told you that there isn’t one in twenty people about town who’d do otherwise than yawn if you asked them to condemn Wilfrid for what he did? And there isn’t one in forty who won’t forget all about it in a fortnight.’

‘I don’t believe you,’ said Jean flatly.

‘You don’t know modern Society, my dear.’

‘It’s modern Society,’ said Jean, even more flatly, ‘that doesn’t count.’

‘Well, I don’t know that it does much; but then what does?’

‘Where does he live?’

Fleur laughed.

‘In Cork Street, opposite the Gallery. You’re not thinking of bearding him, are you?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Wilfrid can bite.’

‘Well,’ said Jean, ‘thanks. I must be going.’

Fleur looked at her with admiration. The girl had flushed, and that pink in her brown cheeks made her look more vivid than ever.

‘Well, good-bye, my dear; and do come and tell me about it. I know you’ve the pluck of the devil.’

‘I don’t know that I’m going at all,’ said Jean. ‘Good-bye!’

She drove, rather angry, past the House of Commons. Her temperament believed so much in action that Fleur’s worldly wisdom had merely irritated her. Still, it was not so easy as she had thought to go to Wilfrid Desert and say: ‘Stand and deliver me back my sister-in-law.’ She drove, however, to Pall Mall, parked her car near the Parthenaeum, and walked up to Piccadilly. People who saw her, especially men, looked back, because of the admirable grace of her limbs and the colour and light in her face. She had no idea where Cork Street was, except that it was near Bond Street. And, when she reached it, she walked up and down before locating the Gallery. ‘That must be the door, opposite,’ she thought. She was standing uncertainly in front of a door without a name, when a man with a dog on a lead came up the stairs and stood beside her.

‘Yes, miss?’

‘I am Mrs Hubert Cherrell. Does Mr Desert live here?’

‘Yes, ma’am; but whether you can see him I don’t know. Here, Foch, good dog! If you’ll wait a minute I’ll find out.’

A minute later Jean, swallowing resolutely, was in the presence. ‘After all,’ she was thinking, ‘he can’t be worse than a parish meeting when you want money from it.’

Wilfrid was standing at the window, with his eyebrows raised.

‘I’m Dinny’s sister-in-law,’ said Jean. ‘I beg your pardon for coming, but I wanted to see you.’

Wilfrid bowed.

‘Come here, Foch.’

The spaniel, who was sniffing round Jean’s skirt, did not respond until he was called again. He licked Wilfrid’s hand and sat down behind him. Jean had flushed.

‘It’s frightful cheek on my part, but I thought you wouldn’t mind. We’ve just come back from the Soudan.’

Wilfrid’s face remained ironic, and irony always upset her. Not quite stammering, she continued:

‘Dinny has never been in the East.’

Again Wilfrid bowed. The affair was not going like a parish meeting.

‘Won’t you sit down?’ he said.

‘Oh, thank you, no; I shan’t be a minute. You see, what I wanted to say was that Dinny can’t possibly realize what certain things mean out there.’