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

“Sit down!” said Jolly. “Take your time! Think it over well.” And he himself sat down on the arm of his grandfather’s chair.

Val did not sit down; he stood with hands thrust deep into his breeches’ pockets⁠—hands clenched and quivering. The full awfulness of this decision one way or the other knocked at his mind with double knocks as of an angry postman. If he did not take that “dare” he was disgraced in Holly’s eyes, and in the eyes of that young enemy, her brute of a brother. Yet if he took it, ah! then all would vanish⁠—her face, her eyes, her hair, her kisses just begun!

“Take your time,” said Jolly again; “I don’t want to be unfair.”

And they both looked at Holly. She had recoiled against the bookshelves reaching to the ceiling; her dark head leaned against Gibbon’s Roman Empire, her eyes in a sort of soft grey agony were fixed on Val. And he, who had not much gift of insight, had suddenly a gleam of vision. She would be proud of her brother⁠—that enemy! She would be ashamed of him! His hands came out of his pockets as if lifted by a spring.

“All right!” he said. “Done!”

Holly’s face⁠—oh! it was queer! He saw her flush, start forward. He had done the right thing⁠—her face was shining with wistful admiration. Jolly stood up and made a little bow as who should say: “You’ve passed.”

“Tomorrow, then,” he said, “we’ll go together.”

Recovering from the impetus which had carried him to that decision, Val looked at him maliciously from under his lashes. “All right,” he thought, “one to you. I shall have to join⁠—but I’ll get back on you somehow.” And he said with dignity: “I shall be ready.”

“We’ll meet at the main Recruiting Office, then,” said Jolly, “at twelve o’clock.” And, opening the window, he went out on to the terrace, conforming to the creed which had made him retire when he surprised them in the hall.

The confusion in the mind of Val thus left alone with her for whom he had paid this sudden price was extreme. The mood of “showing-off” was still, however, uppermost. One must do the wretched thing with an air.

“We shall get plenty of riding and shooting, anyway,” he said; “that’s one comfort.” And it gave him a sort of grim pleasure to hear the sigh which seemed to come from the bottom of her heart.

“Oh! the war’ll soon be over,” he said; “perhaps we shan’t even have to go out. I don’t care, except for you.” He would be out of the way of that beastly divorce. It was an ill-wind! He felt her warm hand slip into his. Jolly thought he had stopped their loving each other, did he? He held her tightly round the waist, looking at her softly through his lashes, smiling to cheer her up, promising to come down and see her soon, feeling somehow six inches taller and much more in command of her than he had ever dared feel before. Many times he kissed her before he mounted and rode back to town. So, swiftly, on the least provocation, does the possessive instinct flourish and grow.

Dinner parties were not now given at James’ in Park Lane⁠—to every house the moment comes when Master or Mistress is no longer “up to it.” no more can nine courses be served to twenty mouths above twenty fine white expanses; nor does the household cat any longer wonder why she is suddenly shut up.

So with something like excitement Emily⁠—who at seventy would still have liked a little feast and fashion now and then⁠—ordered dinner for six instead of two, herself wrote a number of foreign words on cards, and arranged the flowers⁠—mimosa from the Riviera, and white Roman hyacinths not from Rome. There would only be, of course, James and herself, Soames, Winifred, Val, and Imogen⁠—but she liked to pretend a little and dally in imagination with the glory of the past. She so dressed herself that James remarked:

“What are you putting on that thing for? You’ll catch cold.”

But Emily knew that the necks of women are protected by love of shining, unto fourscore years, and she only answered:

“Let me put you on one of those dickies I got you, James; then you’ll only have to change your trousers, and put on your velvet coat, and there you’ll be. Val likes you to look nice.”

“Dicky!” said James. “You’re always wasting your money on something.”

But he suffered the change to be made till his neck also shone, murmuring vaguely:

“He’s an extravagant chap, I’m afraid.”

A little brighter in the eye, with rather more colour than usual in his cheeks, he took his seat in the drawing-room to wait for the sound of the front-door bell.

“I’ve made it a proper dinner party,” Emily said comfortably; “I thought it would be good practice for Imogen⁠—she must get used to it now she’s coming out.”

James uttered an indeterminate sound, thinking of Imogen as she used to climb about his knee or pull Christmas crackers with him.

“She’ll be pretty,” he muttered, “I shouldn’t wonder.”

“She is pretty,” said Emily; “she ought to make a good match.”

“There you go,” murmured James; “she’d much better stay at home and look after her mother.” A second Dartie carrying off his pretty granddaughter would finish him! He had never quite forgiven Emily for having been as much taken in by Montague Dartie as he himself had been.

“Where’s Warmson?” he said suddenly. “I should like a glass of Madeira tonight.”

“There’s champagne, James.”

James shook his head. “No body,” he said; “I can’t get any good out of it.”

Emily reached forward on her side of the fire and rang the bell.

“Your master would like a bottle of Madeira opened, Warmson.”

“No, no!” said James, the tips of his ears quivering with vehemence, and his eyes fixed on an object seen by him alone. “Look here, Warmson, you go to the inner cellar, and