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

was a little late in the day, and those rewards of the possessive instinct, lands and money, destined for the melting-pot⁠—was still a question so moot that it was not mooted. After all, Timothy had said Consols were goin’ up. Timothy, the last, the missing link; Timothy, in extremis on the Bayswater Road⁠—so Francie had reported. It was whispered, too, that this young Mont was a sort of socialist⁠—strangely wise of him, and in the nature of insurance, considering the days they lived in. There was no uneasiness on that score. The landed classes produced that sort of amiable foolishness at times, turned to safe uses and confined to theory. As George remarked to his sister Francie: “They’ll soon be having puppies⁠—that’ll give him pause.”

The church with white flowers and something blue in the middle of the East window looked extremely chaste, as though endeavouring to counteract the somewhat lurid phraseology of a Service calculated to keep the thoughts of all on puppies. Forsytes, Haymans, Tweetymans, sat in the left aisle; Monts, Charwells; Muskhams in the right; while a sprinkling of Fleur’s fellow-sufferers at school, and of Mont’s fellow-sufferers in, the War, gaped indiscriminately from either side, and three maiden ladies, who had dropped in on their way from Skyward’s brought up the rear, together with two Mont retainers and Fleur’s old nurse. In the unsettled state of the country as full a house as could be expected.

Mrs. Val Dartie, who sat with her husband in the third row, squeezed his hand more than once during the performance. To her, who knew the plot of this tragicomedy, its most dramatic moment was well-nigh painful. “I wonder if Jon knows by instinct,” she thought⁠—Jon, out in British Columbia. She had received a letter from him only that morning which had made her smile and say:

“Jon’s in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in California. He thinks it’s too nice there.”

“Oh!” said Val, “so he’s beginning to see a joke again.”

“He’s bought some land and sent for his mother.”

“What on earth will she do out there?”

“All she cares about is Jon. Do you still think it a happy release?”

Val’s shrewd eyes narrowed to grey pinpoints between their dark lashes.

“Fleur wouldn’t have suited him a bit. She’s not bred right.”

“Poor little Fleur!” sighed Holly. Ah! it was strange⁠—this marriage. The young man, Mont, had caught her on the rebound, of course, in the reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone down. Such a plunge could not but be⁠—as Val put it⁠—an outside chance. There was little to be told from the back view of her young cousin’s veil, and Holly’s eyes reviewed the general aspect of this Christian wedding. She, who had made a love-match which had been successful, had a horror of unhappy marriages. This might not be one in the end⁠—but it was clearly a tossup; and to consecrate a tossup in this fashion with manufactured unction before a crowd of fashionable freethinkers⁠—for who thought otherwise than freely, or not at all, when they were dolled up⁠—seemed to her as near a sin as one could find in an age which had abolished them. Her eyes wandered from the prelate in his robes (a Charwell⁠—the Forsytes had not as yet produced a prelate) to Val, beside her, thinking⁠—she was certain⁠—of the Mayfly filly at fifteen to one for the Cambridgeshire. They passed on and caught the profile of the ninth baronet, in counterfeitment of the kneeling process. She could just see the neat ruck above his knees where he had pulled his trousers up, and thought: “Val’s forgotten to pull up his!” Her eyes passed to the pew in front of her, where Winifred’s substantial form was gowned with passion, and on again to Soames and Annette kneeling side by side. A little smile came on her lips⁠—Prosper Profond, back from the South Seas of the Channel, would be kneeling too, about six rows behind. Yes! This was a funny “small” business, however it turned out; still it was in a proper church and would be in the proper papers tomorrow morning.

They had begun a hymn; she could hear the ninth baronet across the aisle, singing of the hosts of Midian. Her little finger touched Val’s thumb⁠—they were holding the same hymnbook⁠—and a tiny thrill passed through her, preserved⁠—from twenty years ago. He stooped and whispered:

“I say, d’you remember the rat?” The rat at their wedding in Cape Colony, which had cleaned its whiskers behind the table at the Registrar’s! And between her little and third forgers she squeezed his thumb hard.

The hymn was over, the prelate had begun to deliver his discourse. He told them of the dangerous times they lived in, and the awful conduct of the House of Lords in connection with divorce. They were all soldiers⁠—he said⁠—in the trenches under the poisonous gas of the Prince of Darkness, and must be manful. The purpose of marriage was children, not mere sinful happiness.

An imp danced in Holly’s eyes⁠—Val’s eyelashes were meeting. Whatever happened; he must not snore. Her finger and thumb closed on his thigh till he stirred uneasily.

The discourse was over, the danger past. They were signing in the vestry; and general relaxation had set in.

A voice behind her said:

“Will she stay the course?”

“Who’s that?” she whispered.

“Old George Forsyte!”

Holly demurely scrutinized one of whom she had often heard. Fresh from South Africa, and ignorant of her kith and kin, she never saw one without an almost childish curiosity. He was very big, and very dapper; his eyes gave her a funny feeling of having no particular clothes.

“They’re off!” she heard him say.

They came, stepping from the chancel. Holly looked first in young Mont’s face. His lips and ears were twitching, his eyes, shifting from his feet to the hand within his arm, stared suddenly before them as if to face a firing party. He gave Holly the feeling that he was spiritually intoxicated. But Fleur! Ah! That was different. The girl was