The Complete Project Gutenberg Works of Galsworthy

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"Of course I will."

"You wouldn't like--" but he stifled the words "to give her lessons."
The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him; yet it would mean
that he would see her regularly. She left the piano and came over to his
chair.

"I would like, very much; but there is--June. When are they coming
back?"

Old Jolyon frowned. "Not till the middle of next month. What does that
matter?"

"You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle
Jolyon."

Forget! She must forget, if he wanted her to.

But as if answering, Irene shook her head. "You know she couldn't; one
doesn't forget."

Always that wretched past! And he said with a sort of vexed finality:

"Well, we shall see."

He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred little
things, till the carriage came round to take her home. And when she had
gone he went back to his chair, and sat there smoothing his face and
chin, dreaming over the day.

That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet of paper.
He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose and stood under the
masterpiece 'Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.' He was not thinking of that
picture, but of his life. He was going to leave her something in his
Will; nothing could so have stirred the stilly deeps of thought and
memory. He was going to leave her a portion of his wealth, of his
aspirations, deeds, qualities, work--all that had made that wealth;
going to leave her, too, a part of all he had missed in life, by his sane
and steady pursuit of wealth. All! What had he missed? 'Dutch Fishing
Boats' responded blankly; he crossed to the French window, and drawing
the curtain aside, opened it. A wind had got up, and one of last year's
oak leaves which had somehow survived the gardener's brooms, was dragging
itself with a tiny clicking rustle along the stone terrace in the
twilight. Except for that it was very quiet out there, and he could
smell the heliotrope watered not long since. A bat went by. A bird
uttered its last 'cheep.' And right above the oak tree the first star
shone. Faust in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years of
youth. Morbid notion! No such bargain was possible, that was real
tragedy! No making oneself new again for love or life or anything.
Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while you could, and
leave it something in your Will. But how much? And, as if he could not
make that calculation looking out into the mild freedom of the country
night, he turned back and went up to the chimney-piece. There were his
pet bronzes--a Cleopatra with the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a
greyhound playing with her puppy; a strong man reining in some horses.
'They last!' he thought, and a pang went through his heart. They had a
thousand years of life before them!

'How much?' Well! enough at all events to save her getting old before her
time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as possible, and grey
from soiling that bright hair. He might live another five years. She
would be well over thirty by then. 'How much?' She had none of his
blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor of his life for forty years and
more, ever since he married and founded that mysterious thing, a family,
came this warning thought--None of his blood, no right to anything! It
was a luxury then, this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an old
man's whim, one of those things done in dotage. His real future was
vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when he was
gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at the old
leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many hundreds of cigars.
And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting there in her grey dress,
fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful, looking up at him. Why! She cared
nothing for him, really; all she cared for was that lost lover of hers.
But she was there, whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her
beauty and grace. One had no right to inflict an old man's company, no
right to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her--for no
reward! Pleasure must be paid for in this world. 'How much?' After
all, there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren would never
miss that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly every penny; he
could leave it where he liked, allow himself this little pleasure. He
went back to the bureau. 'Well, I'm going to,' he thought, 'let them
think what they like. I'm going to!' And he sat down.

'How much?' Ten thousand, twenty thousand--how much? If only with his
money he could buy one year, one month of youth. And startled by that
thought, he wrote quickly:

'DEAR HERRING,--Draw me a codicil to this effect: "I leave to my niece
Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now goes, fifteen
thousand pounds free of legacy duty." 'Yours faithfully, 'JOLYON
FORSYTE.'

When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the window
and drew in a long breath. It was dark, but many stars shone now.




IV

He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had taught him
brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts. Experience had also
taught him that a further waking at the proper hour of eight showed the
folly of such panic. On this particular morning the thought which
gathered rapid momentum was that if he became ill, at his age not
improbable, he would not see her. From this it was but a step to
realisation that he would be cut off, too, when his son and June returned
from Spain. How could he justify desire for the company of one who had
stolen--early morning does not mince words--June's lover? That lover
was dead; but June was a stubborn little thing; warm-hearted, but
stubborn as wood, and--quite true--not one who forgot! By the middle of
next month they would be back. He had barely five weeks left to enjoy
the new interest which had come into what remained of his life. Darkness
showed up to him absurdly clear the nature of his feeling. Admiration
for beauty--a craving to see that which delighted his eyes.

Preposterous, at his age! And yet--what other reason was there for asking
June to undergo such painful reminder, and how prevent his son and his
son's wife from thinking him very queer? He would be reduced to sneaking
up to London, which tired him; and the least indisposition would cut him
off even from that. He lay with eyes open, setting his jaw against the
prospect, and calling himself an old fool, while his heart beat loudly,
and then seemed to stop beating altogether. He had seen the dawn
lighting the window chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and the
cocks crow, before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane. Five
weeks before he need bother, at his age an eternity! But that early
morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of one who
had always had his own way. He would see her as often as he wished! Why
not go up to town and make that codicil at his solicitor's instead of
writing about it; she might like to go to the opera! But, by train, for
he would not have that fat chap Beacon grinning behind his back.
Servants were such fools; and, as likely as not, they had known all the
past history of Irene and young Bosinney--servants knew everything, and
suspected the rest. He wrote to her that morning:

"MY DEAR IRENE,--I have to be up in town to-morrow. If you would like to
have a look in at the opera, come and dine with me quietly ...."

But where? It was decades since he had dined anywhere in London save at
his Club or at a private house. Ah! that new-fangled place close to
Covent Garden....

"Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the Piedmont Hotel whether to
expect you there at 7 o'clock."
"Yours affectionately,
"JOLYON FORSYTE."

She would understand that he just wanted to give her a little pleasure;
for the idea that she should guess he had this itch to see her was
instinctively unpleasant to him; it was not seemly that one so old should
go out of his way to see beauty, especially in a woman.

The journey next day, short though it was, and the visit to his lawyer's,
tired him. It was hot too, and after dressing for dinner he lay down on
the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little. He must have had a sort of
fainting fit, for he came to himself feeling very queer; and with some
difficulty rose and rang the bell. Why! it was past seven! And there he
was and she would be waiting. But suddenly the dizziness came on again,
and he was obliged to relapse on the sofa. He heard the maid's voice
say:

"Did you ring, sir?"

"Yes, come here"; he could not see her clearly, for the cloud in front of
his eyes. "I'm not well, I want some sal volatile."

"Yes, sir." Her voice sounded frightened.

Old Jolyon made an effort.

"Don't go. Take this message to my niece--a lady waiting in the hall--a
lady in grey. Say Mr. Forsyte is not well--the heat. He is very sorry;
if he is not down directly, she is not to wait dinner."

When she was gone, he thought feebly: 'Why did I say a lady in grey--she
may be in anything. Sal volatile!' He did not go off again, yet was not
conscious of how Irene came to be standing beside him, holding smelling
salts to his nose, and pushing a pillow up behind his head. He heard her
say anxiously: "Dear Uncle Jolyon, what is it?" was dimly conscious of
the soft pressure of her lips on his hand; then drew a long breath of
smelling salts, suddenly discovered strength in them, and sneezed.

"Ha!" he said, "it's nothing. How did you get here? Go down and
dine--the tickets are on the dressing-table. I shall be all right in a
minute."

He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets, and sat divided
between a sort of pleasure and a determination to be all right.

"Why! You are in grey!" he said. "Help me up." Once on his feet he gave
himself a shake.

"What business had I to go off like that!" And he moved very slowly to
the glass. What a cadaverous chap! Her voice, behind him, murmured:

"You mustn't come down, Uncle; you must rest."

"Fiddlesticks! A glass of champagne'll soon set me to rights. I can't
have you missing the opera."

But the journey down the corridor was troublesome. What carpets they had
in these newfangled places, so thick that you tripped up in them at every
step! In the lift he noticed how concerned she looked, and said with the
ghost of a twinkle:

"I'm a pretty host."

When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to prevent its
slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of champagne he felt much
better, and began to enjoy an infirmity which had brought such solicitude
into her manner towards him.

"I should have liked you for a daughter," he said suddenly; and watching
the smile in her eyes, went on:

"You mustn't get wrapped up in the past at your time of life; plenty of
that when you get to my age. That's a nice dress--I like the style."

"I made it myself."

Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost her
interest in life.

"Make hay while the sun shines," he said; "and drink that up. I want to
see some colour in your cheeks. We mustn't waste life; it doesn't do.
There's a new Marguerite to-night; let's hope she won't be fat. And
Mephisto--anything more dreadful than a fat chap playing the Devil I
can't imagine."

But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up from dinner
the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted on his staying quiet
and going to bed early. When he parted from her at the door of the
hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her to Chelsea, he sat down again
for a moment to enjoy the memory of her words: "You are such a darling to
me, Uncle Jolyon!" Why! Who wouldn't be! He would have liked to stay up
another day and take her to the Zoo, but two days running of him would
bore her to death. No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised
to come then. They would settle those lessons for Holly, if only for a
month. It would be something. That little Mam'zelle Beauce wouldn't
like it, but she would have to lump it. And crushing his old opera hat
against his chest he sought the lift.

He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to say:
'Drive me to Chelsea.' But his sense of proportion was too strong.
Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk another aberration
like that of last night, away from home. Holly, too, was expecting him,
and what he had in his bag for her. Not that there was any cupboard love
in his little sweet--she was a bundle of affection. Then, with the
rather bitter cynicism of the old, he wondered for a second whether it
was not cupboard love which made Irene put up with him. No, she was not
that sort either. She had, if anything, too little notion of how to
butter her bread, no sense of property, poor thing! Besides, he had not
breathed a word about that codicil, nor should he--sufficient unto the
day was the good thereof.

In the victoria which met him at the station Holly was restraining the
dog Balthasar, and their caresses made 'jubey' his drive home. All the
rest of that fine hot day and most of the next he was content and
peaceful, reposing in the shade, while the long lingering sunshine
showered gold on the lawns and the flowers. But on Thursday evening at
his lonely dinner he began to count the hours; sixty-five till he would
go down to meet her again in the little coppice, and walk up through the
fields at her side. He had intended to consult the doctor about his
fainting fit, but the fellow would be sure to insist on quiet, no
excitement and all that; and he did not mean to be tied by the leg, did
not want to be told of an infirmity--if there were one, could not afford
to hear of it at his time of life, now that this new interest had come.
And he carefully avoided making any mention of it in a letter to his son.
It would only bring them back with a run! How far this silence was due
to consideration for their pleasure, how far to regard for his own, he
did not pause to consider.

That night in his study he had just finished his cigar and was dozing
off, when he heard the rustle of a gown, and was conscious of a scent of
violets. Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in grey, standing by the
fireplace, holding out her arms. The odd thing was that, though those
arms seemed to hold nothing, they were curved as if round someone's neck,
and her own neck was bent back, her lips open, her eyes closed. She
vanished at once, and there were the mantelpiece and his bronzes. But
those bronzes and the mantelpiece had not been there when she was, only
the fireplace and the wall! Shaken and troubled, he got up. 'I must
take medicine,' he thought; 'I can't be well.' His heart beat too fast,
he had an asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the window, he
opened it to get some air. A dog was barking far away, one of the dogs
at Gage's farm no doubt, beyond the coppice. A beautiful still night,
but dark. 'I dropped off,' he mused, 'that's it! And yet I'll swear my
eyes were open!' A sound like a sigh seemed to answer.

"What's that?" he said sharply, "who's there?"

Putting his hand to his side to still the beating of his heart, he
stepped out on the terrace. Something soft scurried by in the dark.
"Shoo!" It was that great grey cat. 'Young Bosinney was like a great
cat!' he thought. 'It was him in there, that she--that she was--He's
got her still!' He walked to the edge of the terrace, and looked down
into the darkness; he could just see the powdering of the daisies on the
unmown lawn. Here to-day and gone to-morrow! And there came the moon,
who saw all, young and old, alive and dead, and didn't care a dump! His
own turn soon. For a single day of youth he would give what was left!
And he turned again towards the house. He could see the windows of the
night nursery up there. His little sweet would be asleep. 'Hope that
dog won't wake her!' he thought. 'What is it makes us love, and makes us
die! I must go to bed.'

And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he passed
back within.

How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his well-spent
past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating warmth, only pale
winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the gentle beating of the
dynamos of memory. The present he should distrust; the future shun.
From beneath thick shade he should watch the sunlight creeping at his
toes. If there be sun of summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking
it for the Indian-summer sun! Thus peradventure he shall decline softly,
slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his wind-pipe and
he gasps away to death some early morning before the world is aired, and
they put on his tombstone: 'In the fulness of years!' yea! If he
preserve his principles in perfect order, a Forsyte may live on long
after he is dead.

Old Jolyon was conscious of all this, and yet there was in him that which
transcended Forsyteism. For it is written that a Forsyte shall not love
beauty more than reason; nor his own way more than his own health. And
something beat within him in these days that with each throb fretted at
the thinning shell. His sagacity knew this, but it knew too that he
could not stop that beating, nor would if he could. And yet, if you had
told him he was living on his capital, he would have stared you down.
No, no; a man did not live on his capital; it was not done! The
shibboleths of the past are ever more real than the actualities of the
present. And he, to whom living on one's capital had always been
anathema, could not have borne to have applied so gross a phrase to his
own case. Pleasure is healthful; beauty good to see; to live again in the
youth of the young--and what else on earth was he doing!

Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life, he now arranged his
time. On Tuesdays he journeyed up to town by train; Irene came and dined
with him. And they went to the opera. On Thursdays he drove to town,
and, putting that fat chap and his horses up, met her in Kensington
Gardens, picking up the carriage after he had left her, and driving home
again in time for dinner. He threw out the casual formula that he had
business in London on those two days. On Wednesdays and Saturdays she
came down to give Holly music lessons. The greater the pleasure he took
in her society, the more scrupulously fastidious he became, just a
matter-of-fact and friendly uncle. Not even in feeling, really, was he
more--for, after all, there was his age. And yet, if she were late he
fidgeted himself to death. If she missed coming, which happened twice,
his eyes grew sad as an old dog's, and he failed to sleep.

And so a month went by--a month of summer in the fields, and in his
heart, with summer's heat and the fatigue thereof. Who could have
believed a few weeks back that he would have looked forward to his son's
and his grand-daughter's return with something like dread! There was such
a delicious freedom, such recovery of that independence a man enjoys
before he founds a family, about these weeks of lovely weather, and this
new companionship with one who demanded nothing, and remained always a
little unknown, retaining the fascination of mystery. It was like a
draught of wine to him who has been drinking water for so long that he
has almost forgotten the stir wine brings to his blood, the narcotic to
his brain. The flowers were coloured brighter, scents and music and the
sunlight had a living value--were no longer mere reminders of past
enjoyment. There was something now to live for which stirred him
continually to anticipation. He lived in that, not in retrospection; the
difference is considerable to any so old as he. The pleasures of the
table, never of much consequence to one naturally abstemious, had lost
all value. He ate little, without knowing what he ate; and every day
grew thinner and more worn to look at. He was again a 'threadpaper'; and
to this thinned form his massive forehead, with hollows at the temples,
gave more dignity than ever. He was very well aware that he ought to see
the doctor, but liberty was too sweet. He could not afford to pet his
frequent shortness of breath and the pain in his side at the expense of
liberty. Return to the vegetable existence he had led among the
agricultural journals with the life-size mangold wurzels, before this new
attraction came into his life--no! He exceeded his allowance of cigars.
Two a day had always been his rule. Now he smoked three and sometimes
four--a man will when he is filled with the creative spirit. But very
often he thought: 'I must give up smoking, and coffee; I must give up
rattling up to town.' But he did not; there was no one in any sort of
authority to notice him, and this was a priceless boon.

The servants perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally, dumb. Mam'zelle
Beauce was too concerned with her own digestion, and too 'wellbrrred' to
make personal allusions. Holly had not as yet an eye for the relative
appearance of him who was her plaything and her god. It was left for
Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to rest in the hot part of the day,
to take a tonic, and so forth. But she did not tell him that she was the
a cause of his thinness--for one cannot see the havoc oneself is
working. A man of eighty-five has no passions, but the Beauty which
produces passion works on in the old way, till death closes the eyes
which crave the sight of Her.

On the first day of the second week in July he received a letter from his
son in Paris to say that they would all be back on Friday. This had
always been more sure than Fate; but, with the pathetic improvidence
given to the old, that they may endure to the end, he had never quite
admitted it. Now he did, and something would have to be done. He had
ceased to be able to imagine life without this new interest, but that
which is not imagined sometimes exists, as Forsytes are perpetually
finding to their cost. He sat in his old leather chair, doubling up the
letter, and mumbling with his lips the end of an unlighted cigar. After
to-morrow his Tuesday expeditions to town would have to be abandoned. He
could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the pretext of seeing his
man of business. But even that would be dependent on his health, for now
they would begin to fuss about him. The lessons! The lessons must go
on! She must swallow down her scruples, and June must put her feelings
in her pocket. She had done so once, on the day after the news of
Bosinney's death; what she had done then, she could surely do again now.
Four years since that injury was inflicted on her--not Christian to keep
the memory of old sores alive. June's will was strong, but his was
stronger, for his sands were running out. Irene was soft, surely she
would do this for him, subdue her natural shrinking, sooner than give him
pain! The lessons must continue; for if they did, he was secure. And
lighting his cigar at last, he began trying to shape out how to put it to
them all, and explain this strange intimacy; how to veil and wrap it away
from the naked truth--that he could not bear to be deprived of the sight
of beauty. Ah! Holly! Holly was fond of her, Holly liked her lessons.
She would save him--his little sweet! And with that happy thought he
became serene, and wondered what he had been worrying about so fearfully.
He must not worry, it left him always curiously weak, and as if but half
present in his own body.

That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness, though he did
not faint. He would not ring the bell, because he knew it would mean a
fuss, and make his going up on the morrow more conspicuous. When one
grew old, the whole world was in conspiracy to limit freedom, and for
what reason?--just to keep the breath in him a little longer. He did not
want it at such cost. Only the dog Balthasar saw his lonely recovery
from that weakness; anxiously watched his master go to the sideboard and
drink some brandy, instead of giving him a biscuit. When at last old
Jolyon felt able to tackle the stairs he went up to bed. And, though
still shaky next morning, the thought of the evening sustained and
strengthened him. It was always such a pleasure to give her a good
dinner--he suspected her of undereating when she was alone; and, at the
opera to watch her eyes glow and brighten, the unconscious smiling of her
lips. She hadn't much pleasure, and this was the last time he would be
able to give her that treat. But when he was packing his bag he caught
himself wishing that he had not the fatigue of dressing for dinner before
him, and the exertion, too, of telling her about June's return.

The opera that evening was 'Carmen,' and he chose the last entr'acte to
break the news, instinctively putting it off till the latest moment.

She took it quietly, queerly; in fact, he did not know how she had taken
it before the wayward music lifted up again and silence became necessary.
The mask was down over her face, that mask behind which so much went on
that he could not see. She wanted time to think it over, no doubt! He
would not press her, for she would be coming to give her lesson to-morrow
afternoon, and he should see her then when she had got used to the idea.
In the cab he talked only of the Carmen; he had seen better in the old
days, but this one was not bad at all. When he took her hand to say
good-night, she bent quickly forward and kissed his forehead.