The Forsyte Saga by John Galsworthy (acx book reading txt) 📕

towards his wife⁠—a shocking act. Jo had seen her, too, that afternoon, after the news was out, seen her for a moment, and his description had always lingered in old Jolyon’s mind⁠—“wild and lost” he had called her. And next day June had gone there⁠—bottled up her feelings and gone there, and the maid had cried and told her how her mistress had slipped out in the night and vanished. A tragic business altogether! One thing was certain⁠—Soames had never been able to lay hands on her again. And he was living at Brighton, and journeying up and down⁠—a fitting fate, the man of property! For when he once took a dislike to anyone⁠—as he had to his nephew⁠—old Jolyon never got over it. He remembered still the sense of relief with which he had heard the news of Irene’s disappearance. It had been shocking to think of her a prisoner in that house to which she must have wandered back, when Jo saw her, wandered back for a moment⁠—like a wounded animal to its hole after seeing that news, “Tragic death of an Architect,” in the street. Her face had struck him very much the other night⁠—more beautiful than he had remembered, but like a mask, with something going on beneath it. A young woman still⁠—twenty-eight perhaps. Ah, well! Very likely she had another lover by now. But at this subversive thought⁠—for married women should never love: once, even, had been too much⁠—his instep rose, and with it the dog Balthasar’s head. The sagacious animal stood up and looked into old Jolyon’s face. “Walk?” he seemed to say; and old Jolyon answered: “Come on, old chap!”

Slowly, as was their wont, they crossed among the constellations of buttercups and daisies, and entered the fernery. This feature, where very little grew as yet, had been judiciously dropped below the level of the lawn so that it might come up again on the level of the other lawn and give the impression of irregularity, so important in horticulture. Its rocks and earth were beloved of the dog Balthasar, who sometimes found a mole there. Old Jolyon made a point of passing through it because, though it was not beautiful, he intended that it should be, some day, and he would think: “I must get Varr to come down and look at it; he’s better than Beech.” For plants, like houses and human complaints, required the best expert consideration. It was inhabited by snails, and if accompanied by his grandchildren, he would point to one and tell them the story of the little boy who said: “Have plummers got leggers, Mother?” “No, sonny.” “Then darned if I haven’t been and swallowed a snileybob.” And when they skipped and clutched his hand, thinking of the snileybob going down the little boy’s “red lane,” his eyes would twinkle. Emerging from the fernery, he opened the wicket gate, which just there led into the first field, a large and park-like area, out of which, within brick walls, the vegetable garden had been carved. Old Jolyon avoided this, which did not suit his mood, and made down the hill towards the pond. Balthasar, who knew a water-rat or two, gambolled in front, at the gait which marks an oldish dog who takes the same walk every day. Arrived at the edge, old Jolyon stood, noting another water-lily opened since yesterday; he would show it to Holly tomorrow, when “his little sweet” had got over the upset which had followed on her eating a tomato at lunch⁠—her little arrangements were very delicate. Now that Jolly had gone to school⁠—his first term⁠—Holly was with him nearly all day long, and he missed her badly. He felt that pain too, which often bothered him now, a little dragging at his left side. He looked back up the hill. Really, poor young Bosinney had made an uncommonly good job of the house; he would have done very well for himself if he had lived! And where was he now? Perhaps, still haunting this, the site of his last work, of his tragic love affair. Or was Philip Bosinney’s spirit diffused in the general? Who could say? That dog was getting his legs muddy! And he moved towards the coppice. There had been the most delightful lot of bluebells, and he knew where some still lingered like little patches of sky fallen in between the trees, away out of the sun. He passed the cow-houses and the henhouses there installed, and pursued a path into the thick of the saplings, making for one of the bluebell plots. Balthasar, preceding him once more, uttered a low growl. Old Jolyon stirred him with his foot, but the dog remained motionless, just where there was no room to pass, and the hair rose slowly along the centre of his woolly back. Whether from the growl and the look of the dog’s stivered hair, or from the sensation which a man feels in a wood, old Jolyon also felt something move along his spine. And then the path turned, and there was an old mossy log, and on it a woman sitting. Her face was turned away, and he had just time to think: “She’s trespassing⁠—I must have a board put up!” before she turned. Powers above! The face he had seen at the opera⁠—the very woman he had just been thinking of! In that confused moment he saw things blurred, as if a spirit⁠—queer effect⁠—the slant of sunlight perhaps on her violet-grey frock! And then she rose and stood smiling, her head a little to one side. Old Jolyon thought: “How pretty she is!” She did not speak, neither did he; and he realized why with a certain admiration. She was here no doubt because of some memory, and did not mean to try and get out of it by vulgar explanation.

“Don’t let that dog touch your frock,” he said; “he’s got wet feet. Come here, you!”

But the dog Balthasar went on towards the visitor,