The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3(54)

‘Is that you, Hubert? Jean speaking.’

‘Yes, darling.’

‘Come here after dinner. I must see you.’

‘About nine?’

‘Yes. My love to you. That’s all.’ And she cut off.

She stood for a moment before going up to dress, as if to endorse that simile of ‘leopardess’. She looked, indeed, like Youth stalking its own future – lithe, intent, not to be deviated, in Fleur’s finished and stylistic drawing-room as much at home and yet as foreign to its atmosphere as a cat might be.

Dinner, when any of the diners have cause for really serious anxiety and the others know of it, is conspicuous for avoidance of all but quick-fire conversation. Nobody touched on the Ferse topic, and Adrian left as soon as he had drunk his coffee. Dinny saw him out.

‘Good night, Uncle dear. I shall sleep with my emergency suit-case; one can always get a taxi here at a moment’s notice. Promise me not to worry.’

Adrian smiled, but he looked haggard. Jean met her coming from the door and told her the fresh news of Hubert. Her first feeling, of complete dismay, was succeeded by burning indignation.

‘What utter ruffianism!’

‘Yes,’ said Jean. ‘Hubert’s coming in a minute or two and I want him to myself.’

‘Take him up to Michael’s study, then. I’ll go and tell Michael. Parliament ought to know; only,’ she added, ‘it’s not sitting. It only seems to sit when it oughtn’t to.’

Jean waited in the hall to let Hubert in. When he had gone up with her to that room whose walls were covered with the graven witticisms of the last three generations, she put him into Michael’s most comfortable chair, and sat down on his knee. Thus, with her arm round his neck, and her lips more or less to his, she stayed for some minutes.

‘That’ll do,’ she said, rising, and lighting cigarettes. ‘This extradition business isn’t going to come to anything, Hubert.’

‘But suppose it does.’

‘It won’t. But if it does – all the more reason for our being married at once.’

‘My darling girl, I can’t possibly.’

‘You must. You don’t suppose that if you were extradited – which is absurd – I shouldn’t go too. Of course I should, and by the same boat – married or not.’

Hubert looked at her.

‘You’re a marvel,’ he said, ‘but –’

‘Oh! yes, I know. Your father, and your chivalry, and your desire to make me unhappy for my own good, and all that. I’ve seen your uncle Hilary. He’s ready to do it; he’s a padre and a man of real experience. Now, look here – we’ll tell him of this development, and if he’ll still do it, we’ll be done. We’ll go to him together tomorrow morning.’

‘But –’

‘But! Surely you can trust him; he strikes me as a real person.’

‘He is,’ said Hubert; ‘no one more so.’

‘Very well then; that’s settled. Now you can kiss me again.’ And she resumed her position on his knee. So, but for her acute sense of hearing, they would have been surprised. She was, however, examining the White Monkey on the wall, and Hubert was taking out his cigarette case, when Dinny opened the door.

‘This monkey is frightfully good,’ said Jean. ‘We’re going to be married, Dinny, in spite of this new nonsense – that is, if your Uncle Hilary still will. You can come with us to him again tomorrow morning, if you like.’

Dinny looked at Hubert, who had risen.

‘She’s hopeless,’ he said: ‘I can’t do anything with her.’

‘And you can’t do anything without her. Imagine! He thought, if the worst came to the worst and he was sent out to be tried, that I shouldn’t be going too. Men really are terribly like babies. Well, Dinny?’

‘I’m glad.’

‘It depends on Uncle Hilary,’ said Hubert; ‘you understand that, Jean.’

‘Yes. He’s in touch with real life, and what he says shall go. Come for us at ten tomorrow. Turn your back, Dinny. I’ll give him one kiss, and then he must be off.’

Dinny turned her back.

‘Now,’ said Jean. They went down; and soon after, the girls went up to bed. Their rooms were next each other, and furnished with all Fleur’s taste. They talked a little, embraced and parted. Dinny dawdled over her undressing.

The quiet Square, inhabited for the most part by Members of Parliament away on holiday, had few lights in the windows of its houses; no wind stirred the dark branches of the trees; through her open window came air that had no night sweetness; and rumbling noises of the Town kept alive in her the tingling sensations of that long day.