The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(184)

‘He said he felt sorry for his executioner.’

Neither his wife nor his father moved, except for a slight raising of the eyebrows. He went on defiantly:

‘Of course, it sounds absurd, but he said the fellow begged him not to make him shoot – he was under a vow to convert the infidel.’

‘To mention that to the Committee,’ Sir Lawrence said slowly, ‘would certainly be telling it to the marines.’

‘He’s not likely to,’ said Fleur; ‘he’d rather die than be laughed at.’

‘Exactly! I only mentioned it to show that the whole thing’s not so simple as it appears to the pukka sahib.’

‘When,’ murmured Sir Lawrence, in a detached voice, ‘have I heard anything so nicely ironical? But all this is not helping Dinny.’

‘I think I’ll go and see him again,’ said Michael.

‘The simplest thing,’ said Fleur, ‘is for him to resign at once.’

And with that common-sense conclusion the discussion closed.





Chapter Twenty-three




THOSE who love, when the object of their love is in trouble, must keep sympathy to themselves and yet show it. Dinny did not find this easy. She watched, lynx-eyed, for any chance to assuage her lover’s bitterness of soul; but though they continued to meet daily, he gave her none. Except for the expression of his face when he was off guard, he might have been quite untouched by tragedy. Throughout that fortnight after the Derby she came to his rooms, and they went joy-riding, accompanied by the spaniel Foch; and he never mentioned that of which all more or less literary and official London was talking. Through Sir Lawrence, however, she heard that he had been asked to meet the Committee of Burton’s Club and had answered by resignation. And, through Michael, who had been to see him again, she heard that he knew of Jack Muskham’s part in the affair. Since he so rigidly refused to open out to her, she, at great cost, tried to surpass him in obliviousness of purgatory. His face often made her ache, but she kept that ache out of her own face. And all the time she was in bitter doubt whether she was right to refrain from trying to break through to him. It was a long and terrible lesson in the truth that not even real love can reach and anoint deep spiritual sores. The other half of her trouble, the unending quiet pressure of her family’s sorrowful alarm, caused her an irritation of which she was ashamed.

And then occurred an incident which, however unpleasant and alarming at the moment, was almost a relief because it broke up that silence.

They had been to the Tate Gallery and, walking home, had just come up the steps leading to Carlton House Terrace. Dinny was still talking about the pre-Raphaelites, and saw nothing till Wilfrid’s changed expression made her look for the cause. There was Jack Muskham, with a blank face, formally lifting a tall hat as if to someone who was not there, and a short dark man removing a grey felt covering, in unison. They passed, and she heard Muskham say:

‘That I consider the limit.’

Instinctively her hand went out to grasp Wilfrid’s arm, but too late. He had spun round in his tracks. She saw him, three yards away, tap Muskham on the shoulder, and the two face each other, with the little man looking up at them like a terrier at two large dogs about to fight. She heard Wilfrid say in a low voice:

‘What a coward and cad you are!’

There followed an endless silence, while her eyes flitted from Wilfrid’s convulsed face to Muskham’s, rigid and menacing, and the terrier man’s black eyes snapping up at them. She heard him say: ‘Come on, Jack!’ saw a tremor pass through the length of Muskham’s figure, his hands clench, his lips move:

‘You heard that, Yule?’

The little man’s hand, pushed under his arm, pulled at him; the tall figure turned; the two moved away; and Wilfrid was back at her side.

‘Coward and cad!’ he muttered: ‘Coward and cad! Thank God I’ve told him!’ He threw up his head, took a gulp of air, and said: ‘That’s better! Sorry, Dinny!’

In Dinny feeling was too churned up for speech. The moment had been so savagely primitive; and she had the horrid fear that it could not end there; and intuition, too, that she was the cause, the hidden reason of Muskham’s virulence. She remembered Sir Lawrence’s words: ‘Jack thinks you are being victimized.’ What if she were! What business was it of that long, lounging man who hated women! Absurd! She heard Wilfrid muttering:

‘ “The limit!” He might know what one feels!’

‘But, darling, if we all knew what other people felt, we should be seraphim, and he’s only a member of the Jockey Club.’