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

fluttering there. She would not be in! And then⁠—Boots! The thought was black. What did he want with boots at his age? He could not wear out all those he had.

“Your mistress at home?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Say Mr. Jolyon Forsyte.”

“Yes, sir, will you come this way?”

Old Jolyon followed a very little maid⁠—not more than sixteen one would say⁠—into a very small drawing-room where the sun-blinds were drawn. It held a cottage piano and little else save a vague fragrance and good taste. He stood in the middle, with his top hat in his hand, and thought: “I expect she’s very badly off!” There was a mirror above the fireplace, and he saw himself reflected. An old-looking chap! He heard a rustle, and turned round. She was so close that his moustache almost brushed her forehead, just under her hair.

“I was driving up,” he said. “Thought I’d look in on you, and ask you how you got up the other night.”

And, seeing her smile, he felt suddenly relieved. She was really glad to see him, perhaps.

“Would you like to put on your hat and come for a drive in the Park?”

But while she was gone to put her hat on, he frowned. The Park! James and Emily! Mrs. Nicholas, or some other member of his precious family would be there very likely, prancing up and down. And they would go and wag their tongues about having seen him with her, afterwards. Better not! He did not wish to revive the echoes of the past on Forsyte ’Change. He removed a white hair from the lapel of his closely-buttoned-up frock coat, and passed his hand over his cheeks, moustache, and square chin. It felt very hollow there under the cheekbones. He had not been eating much lately⁠—he had better get that little whippersnapper who attended Holly to give him a tonic. But she had come back and when they were in the carriage, he said:

“Suppose we go and sit in Kensington Gardens instead?” and added with a twinkle: “No prancing up and down there,” as if she had been in the secret of his thoughts.

Leaving the carriage, they entered those select precincts, and strolled towards the water.

“You’ve gone back to your maiden name, I see,” he said: “I’m not sorry.”

She slipped her hand under his arm: “Has June forgiven me, Uncle Jolyon?”

He answered gently: “Yes⁠—yes; of course, why not?”

“And have you?”

“I? I forgave you as soon as I saw how the land really lay.” And perhaps he had; his instinct had always been to forgive the beautiful.

She drew a deep breath. “I never regretted⁠—I couldn’t. Did you ever love very deeply, Uncle Jolyon?”

At that strange question old Jolyon stared before him. Had he? He did not seem to remember that he ever had. But he did not like to say this to the young woman whose hand was touching his arm, whose life was suspended, as it were, by memory of a tragic love. And he thought: “If I had met you when I was young I⁠—I might have made a fool of myself, perhaps.” And a longing to escape in generalities beset him.

“Love’s a queer thing,” he said, “fatal thing often. It was the Greeks⁠—wasn’t it?⁠—made love into a goddess; they were right, I dare say, but then they lived in the Golden Age.”

“Phil adored them.”

Phil! The word jarred him, for suddenly⁠—with his power to see all round a thing, he perceived why she was putting up with him like this. She wanted to talk about her lover! Well! If it was any pleasure to her! And he said: “Ah! There was a bit of the sculptor in him, I fancy.”

“Yes. He loved balance and symmetry; he loved the wholehearted way the Greeks gave themselves to art.”

Balance! The chap had no balance at all, if he remembered; as for symmetry⁠—clean-built enough he was, no doubt; but those queer eyes of his, and high cheekbones⁠—Symmetry?

“You’re of the Golden Age, too, Uncle Jolyon.”

Old Jolyon looked round at her. Was she chaffing him? No, her eyes were soft as velvet. Was she flattering him? But if so, why? There was nothing to be had out of an old chap like him.

“Phil thought so. He used to say: ‘But I can never tell him that I admire him.’ ”

Ah! There it was again. Her dead lover; her desire to talk of him! And he pressed her arm, half resentful of those memories, half grateful, as if he recognised what a link they were between herself and him.

“He was a very talented young fellow,” he murmured. “It’s hot; I feel the heat nowadays. Let’s sit down.”

They took two chairs beneath a chestnut tree whose broad leaves covered them from the peaceful glory of the afternoon. A pleasure to sit there and watch her, and feel that she liked to be with him. And the wish to increase that liking, if he could, made him go on:

“I expect he showed you a side of him I never saw. He’d be at his best with you. His ideas of art were a little new⁠—to me”⁠—he had stiffed the word “fangled.”

“Yes: but he used to say you had a real sense of beauty.” Old Jolyon thought: “The devil he did!” but answered with a twinkle: “Well, I have, or I shouldn’t be sitting here with you.” She was fascinating when she smiled with her eyes, like that!

“He thought you had one of those hearts that never grow old. Phil had real insight.”

He was not taken in by this flattery spoken out of the past, out of a longing to talk of her dead lover⁠—not a bit; and yet it was precious to hear, because she pleased his eyes and heart which⁠—quite true!⁠—had never grown old. Was that because⁠—unlike her and her dead lover, he had never loved to desperation, had always kept his balance, his sense of symmetry. Well! It had left him power, at eighty-four, to admire beauty. And he thought, “If I were a painter or a sculptor! But I’m an old