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

the official they saw was an old school friend of Jolyon’s, they obtained permission for Holly to share the single cabin. He took them to Surbiton station the following evening, and they duly slid away from him, provided with money, invalid foods, and those letters of credit without which Forsytes do not travel.

He drove back to Robin Hill under a brilliant sky to his late dinner, served with an added care by servants trying to show him that they sympathised, eaten with an added scrupulousness to show them that he appreciated their sympathy. But it was a real relief to get to his cigar on the terrace of flagstones⁠—cunningly chosen by young Bosinney for shape and colour⁠—with night closing in around him, so beautiful a night, hardly whispering in the trees, and smelling so sweet that it made him ache. The grass was drenched with dew, and he kept to those flagstones, up and down, till presently it began to seem to him that he was one of three, not wheeling, but turning right about at each end, so that his father was always nearest to the house, and his son always nearest to the terrace edge. Each had an arm lightly within his arm; he dared not lift his hand to his cigar lest he should disturb them, and it burned away, dripping ash on him, till it dropped from his lips, at last, which were getting hot. They left him then, and his arms felt chilly. Three Jolyons in one Jolyon they had walked.

He stood still, counting the sounds⁠—a carriage passing on the highroad, a distant train, the dog at Gage’s farm, the whispering trees, the groom playing on his penny whistle. A multitude of stars up there⁠—bright and silent, so far off! No moon as yet! Just enough light to show him the dark flags and swords of the iris flowers along the terrace edge⁠—his favourite flower that had the night’s own colour on its curving crumpled petals. He turned round to the house. Big, unlighted, not a soul beside himself to live in all that part of it. Stark loneliness! He could not go on living here alone. And yet, so long as there was beauty, why should a man feel lonely? The answer⁠—as to some idiot’s riddle⁠—was: Because he did. The greater the beauty, the greater the loneliness, for at the back of beauty was harmony, and at the back of harmony was⁠—union. Beauty could not comfort if the soul were out of it. The night, maddeningly lovely, with bloom of grapes on it in starshine, and the breath of grass and honey coming from it, he could not enjoy, while she who was to him the life of beauty, its embodiment and essence, was cut off from him, utterly cut off now, he felt, by honourable decency.

He made a poor fist of sleeping, striving too hard after that resignation which Forsytes find difficult to reach, bred to their own way and left so comfortably off by their fathers. But after dawn he dozed off, and soon was dreaming a strange dream.

He was on a stage with immensely high rich curtains⁠—high as the very stars⁠—stretching in a semicircle from footlights to footlights. He himself was very small, a little black restless figure roaming up and down; and the odd thing was that he was not altogether himself, but Soames as well, so that he was not only experiencing but watching. This figure of himself and Soames was trying to find a way out through the curtains, which, heavy and dark, kept him in. Several times he had crossed in front of them before he saw with delight a sudden narrow rift⁠—a tall chink of beauty the colour of iris flowers, like a glimpse of Paradise, remote, ineffable. Stepping quickly forward to pass into it, he found the curtains closing before him. Bitterly disappointed he⁠—or was it Soames?⁠—moved on, and there was the chink again through the parted curtains, which again closed too soon. This went on and on and he never got through till he woke with the word “Irene” on his lips. The dream disturbed him badly, especially that identification of himself with Soames.

Next morning, finding it impossible to work, he spent hours riding Jolly’s horse in search of fatigue. And on the second day he made up his mind to move to London and see if he could not get permission to follow his daughters to South Africa. He had just begun to pack the following morning when he received this letter:

“Green Hotel,

“June 13.

“Richmond.

“My Dear Jolyon,

“You will be surprised to see how near I am to you. Paris became impossible⁠—and I have come here to be within reach of your advice. I would so love to see you again. Since you left Paris I don’t think I have met anyone I could really talk to. Is all well with you and with your boy? No one knows, I think, that I am here at present.

“Always your friend,

“Irene.”

Irene within three miles of him!⁠—and again in flight! He stood with a very queer smile on his lips. This was more than he had bargained for!

About noon he set out on foot across Richmond Park, and as he went along, he thought: “Richmond Park! By Jove, it suits us Forsytes!” Not that Forsytes lived there⁠—nobody lived there save royalty, rangers, and the deer⁠—but in Richmond Park Nature was allowed to go so far and no further, putting up a brave show of being natural, seeming to say: “Look at my instincts⁠—they are almost passions, very nearly out of hand, but not quite, of course; the very hub of possession is to possess oneself.” Yes! Richmond Park possessed itself, even on that bright day of June, with arrowy cuckoos shifting the tree-points of their calls, and the wood doves announcing high summer.

The Green Hotel, which Jolyon entered at one o’clock, stood nearly opposite that more famous hostelry, the Crown and Sceptre; it