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

of negation. “I?” he said bitterly. “Help? I am the impediment⁠—the just cause and impediment⁠—isn’t that the jargon? You have my blood in your veins.”

He rose.

“Well, the fat’s in the fire. If you persist in your wilfulness you’ll have yourself to blame. Come! Don’t be foolish, my child⁠—my only child!”

Fleur laid her forehead against his shoulder.

All was in such turmoil within her. But no good to show it! No good at all! She broke away from him, and went out into the twilight, distraught, but unconvinced. All was indeterminate and vague within her, like the shapes and shadows in the garden, except⁠—her will to have. A poplar pierced up into the dark-blue sky and touched a white star there. The dew wetted her shoes, and chilled her bare shoulders. She went down to the river bank, and stood gazing at a moonstreak on the darkening water. Suddenly she smelled tobacco smoke, and a white figure emerged as if created by the moon. It was young Mont in flannels, standing in his boat. She heard the tiny hiss of his cigarette extinguished in the water.

“Fleur,” came his voice, “don’t be hard on a poor devil! I’ve been waiting hours.”

“For what?”

“Come in my boat!”

“Not I.”

“Why not?”

“I’m not a water-nymph.”

“Haven’t you any romance in you? Don’t be modern, Fleur!”

He appeared on the path within a yard of her.

“Go away!”

“Fleur, I love you. Fleur!”

Fleur uttered a short laugh.

“Come again,” she said, “when I haven’t got my wish.”

“What is your wish?”

“Ask another.”

“Fleur,” said Mont, and his voice sounded strange, “don’t mock me! Even vivisected dogs are worth decent treatment before they’re cut up for good.”

Fleur shook her head; but her lips were trembling.

“Well, you shouldn’t make me jump. Give me a cigarette.”

Mont gave her one, lighted it, and another for himself.

“I don’t want to talk rot,” he said, “but please imagine all the rot that all the lovers that ever were have talked, and all my special rot thrown in.”

“Thank you, I have imagined it. Good night!” They stood for a moment facing each other in the shadow of an acacia-tree with very moonlit blossoms, and the smoke from their cigarettes mingled in the air between them.

“Also ran: ‘Michael Mont.’ ” he said. Fleur turned abruptly toward the house. On the lawn she stopped to look back. Michael Mont was whirling his arms above him; she could see them dashing at his head; then waving at the moonlit blossoms of the acacia. His voice just reached her. “Jolly⁠—jolly!” Fleur shook herself. She couldn’t help him, she had too much trouble of her own! On the verandah she stopped very suddenly again. Her mother was sitting in the drawing-room at her writing bureau, quite alone. There was nothing remarkable in the expression of her face except its utter immobility. But she looked desolate! Fleur went upstairs. At the door of her room she paused. She could hear her father walking up and down, up and down the picture-gallery.

“Yes,” she thought, “jolly! Oh, Jon!”

X Decision

When Fleur left him Jon stared at the Austrian. She was a thin woman with a dark face and the concerned expression of one who has watched every little good that life once had slip from her, one by one. “No tea?” she said.

Susceptible to the disappointment in her voice, Jon murmured:

“No, really; thanks.”

“A lil cup⁠—it ready. A lil cup and cigarette.”

Fleur was gone! Hours of remorse and indecision lay before him! And with a heavy sense of disproportion he smiled, and said:

“Well⁠—thank you!”

She brought in a little pot of tea with two little cups, and a silver box of cigarettes on a little tray.

“Sugar? Miss Forsyte has much sugar⁠—she buy my sugar, my friend’s sugar also. Miss Forsyte is a veree kind lady. I am happy to serve her. You her brother?”

“Yes,” said Jon, beginning to puff the second cigarette of his life.

“Very young brother,” said the Austrian, with a little anxious smile, which reminded him of the wag of a dog’s tail.

“May I give you some?” he said. “And won’t you sit down, please?”

The Austrian shook her head.

“Your father a very nice old man⁠—the most nice old man I ever see. Miss Forsyte tell me all about him. Is he better?”

Her words fell on Jon like a reproach. “Oh! Yes, I think he’s all right.”

“I like to see him again,” said the Austrian, putting a hand on her heart; “he have veree kind heart.”

“Yes,” said Jon. And again her words seemed to him a reproach.

“He never give no trouble to no one, and smile so gentle.”

“Yes, doesn’t he?”

“He look at Miss Forsyte so funny sometimes. I tell him all my story; he so sympátisch. Your mother⁠—she nice and well?”

“Yes, very.”

“He have her photograph on his dressing-table. Veree beautiful.”

Jon gulped down his tea. This woman, with her concerned face and her reminding words, was like the first and second murderers.

“Thank you,” he said; “I must go now. May⁠—may I leave this with you?”

He put a ten-shilling note on the tray with a doubting hand and gained the door. He heard the Austrian gasp, and hurried out. He had just time to catch his train, and all the way to Victoria looked at every face that passed, as lovers will, hoping against hope. On reaching Worthing he put his luggage into the local train, and set out across the Downs for Wansdon, trying to walk off his aching irresolution. So long as he went full bat, he could enjoy the beauty of those green slopes, stopping now and again to sprawl on the grass, admire the perfection of a wild rose or listen to a lark’s song. But the war of motives within him was but postponed⁠—the longing for Fleur, and the hatred of deception. He came to the old chalk-pit above Wansdon with his mind no more made up than when he started. To see both sides of a question vigorously was at once Jon’s strength and weakness. He tramped in, just as the first dinner-bell rang.