Chapter IX: Irene’s Return (2)

“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 chap. Make hay
while the sun shines.”

A couple with arms entwined crossed on the grass before them, at
the edge of the shadow from their tree. The sunlight fell cruelly
on their pale, squashed, unkempt young faces. “We’re an ugly
lot!” said old Jolyon suddenly. “It amazes me to see how—love
triumphs over that.”

“Love triumphs over everything!”

“The young think so,” he muttered.

“Love has no age, no limit, and no death.”

With that glow in her pale face, her breast heaving, her eyes so
large and dark and soft, she looked like Venus come to life! But
this extravagance brought instant reaction, and, twinkling, he
said: “Well, if it had limits, we shouldn’t be born; for by
George! it’s got a lot to put up with.”

Then, removing his top hat, he brushed it round with a cuff. The
great clumsy thing heated his forehead; in these days he often
got a rush of blood to the head—his circulation was not what it
had been.

She still sat gazing straight before her, and suddenly she
murmured:

“It’s strange enough that _I’m_ alive.”

Those words of Jo’s “Wild and lost” came back to him.

“Ah!” he said: “my son saw you for a moment—that day.”

“Was it your son? I heard a voice in the hall; I thought for a
second it was—Phil.”

Old Jolyon saw her lips tremble. She put her hand over them, took
it away again, and went on calmly: “That night I went to the
Embankment; a woman caught me by the dress. She told me about
herself. When one knows that others suffer, one’s ashamed.”

“One of _those?_”

She nodded, and horror stirred within old Jolyon, the horror of
one who has never known a struggle with desperation. Almost
against his will he muttered: “Tell me, won’t you?”

“I didn’t care whether I lived or died. When you’re like that,
Fate ceases to want to kill you. She took care of me three
days—she never left me. I had no money. That’s why I do what I
can for them, now.”

But old Jolyon was thinking: “No money!” What fate could compare
with that? Every other was involved in it.

“I wish you had come to me,” he said. “Why didn’t you?” But Irene
did not answer.

“Because my name was Forsyte, I suppose? Or was it June who kept
you away? How are you getting on now?” His eyes involuntarily
swept her body. Perhaps even now she was—! And yet she wasn’t
thin—not really!

“Oh! with my fifty pounds a year, I make just enough.” The answer
did not reassure him; he had lost confidence. And that fellow
Soames! But his sense of justice stifled condemnation. No, she
would certainly have died rather than take another penny from
_him_. Soft as she looked, there must be strength in her
somewhere—strength and fidelity. But what business had young
Bosinney to have got run over and left her stranded like this!

“Well, you must come to me now,” he said, “for anything you want,
or I shall be quite cut up.” And putting on his hat, he rose.
“Let’s go and get some tea. I told that lazy chap to put the
horses up for an hour, and come for me at your place. We’ll take
a cab presently; I can’t walk as I used to.”

He enjoyed that stroll to the Kensington end of the gardens—the
sound of her voice, the glancing of her eyes, the subtle beauty
of a charming form moving beside him. He enjoyed their tea at
Ruffel’s in the High Street, and came out thence with a great box
of chocolates swung on his little finger. He enjoyed the drive
back to Chelsea in a hansom, smoking his cigar. She had promised
to come down next Sunday and play to him again, and already in
thought he was plucking carnations and early roses for her to
carry back to town. It was a pleasure to give her a little
pleasure, if it _were_ pleasure from an old chap like him! The
carriage was already there when they arrived. Just like that
fellow, who was always late when he was wanted! Old Jolyon went
in for a minute to say good-bye. The little dark hall of the flat
was impregnated with a disagreeable odour of patchouli, and on a
bench against the wall—its only furniture—he saw a figure
sitting. He heard Irene say softly: “Just one minute.” In the
little drawing-room when the door was shut, he asked gravely:
“One of your _protégées?_”

“Yes. Now thanks to you, I can do something for her.”

He stood, staring, and stroking that chin whose strength had
frightened so many in its time. The idea of her thus actually in
contact with this outcast grieved and frightened him. What could
she do for them? Nothing. Only soil and make trouble for herself,
perhaps. And he said: “Take care, my dear! The world puts the
worst construction on everything.”

“I know that.”

He was abashed by her quiet smile. “Well then—Sunday,” he
murmured: “Good-bye.”

She put her cheek forward for him to kiss.

“Good-bye,” he said again; “take care of yourself.” And he went
out, not looking towards the figure on the bench. He drove home
by way of Hammersmith; that he might stop at a place he knew of
and tell them to send her in two dozen of their best Burgundy.
She must want picking-up sometimes! Only in Richmond Park did he
remember that he had gone up to order himself some boots, and was
surprised that he could have had so paltry an idea.

III

The little spirits of the past which throng an old man’s days had
never pushed their faces up to his so seldom as in the seventy
hours elapsing before Sunday came. The spirit of the future, with
the charm of the unknown, put up her lips instead. Old Jolyon was
not restless now, and paid no visits to the log, because she was
_coming to lunch_. There is wonderful finality about a meal; it
removes a world of doubts, for no one misses meals except for
reasons beyond control. He played many games with Holly on the
lawn, pitching them up to her who was batting so as to be ready
to bowl to Jolly in the holidays. For she was not a Forsyte, but
Jolly was—and Forsytes always bat, until they have resigned and
reached the age of eighty-five. The dog Balthasar, in attendance,
lay on the ball as often as he could, and the page-boy fielded,
till his face was like the harvest moon. And because the time was
getting shorter, each day was longer and more golden than the
last. On Friday night he took a liver pill, his side hurt him
rather, and though it was not the liver side, there is no remedy
like that. Anyone telling him that he had found a new excitement
in life and that excitement was not good for him, would have been
met by one of those steady and rather defiant looks of his
deep-set iron-grey eyes, which seemed to say: “I know my own
business best.” He always had and always would.

On Sunday morning, when Holly had gone with her governess to
church, he visited the strawberry beds. There, accompanied by the
dog Balthasar, he examined the plants narrowly and succeeded in
finding at least two dozen berries which were really ripe.
Stooping was not good for him, and he became very dizzy and red
in the forehead. Having placed the strawberries in a dish on the
dining-table, he washed his hands and bathed his forehead with
eau de Cologne. There, before the mirror, it occurred to him that
he was thinner. What a “threadpaper” he had been when he was
young! It was nice to be slim—he could not bear a fat chap; and
yet perhaps his cheeks were _too_ thin! She was to arrive by
train at half-past twelve and walk up, entering from the road
past Drage’s farm at the far end of the coppice. And, having
looked into June’s room to see that there was hot water ready, he
set forth to meet her, leisurely, for his heart was beating. The
air smelled sweet, larks sang, and the Grand Stand at Epsom was
visible. A perfect day! On just such a one, no doubt, six years
ago, Soames had brought young Bosinney down with him to look at
the site before they began to build. It was Bosinney who had
pitched on the exact spot for the house—as June had often told
him. In these days he was thinking much about that young fellow,
as if his spirit were really haunting the field of his last work,
on the chance of seeing—her. Bosinney—the one man who had
possessed her heart, to whom she had given her whole self with
rapture! At his age one could not, of course, imagine such
things, but there stirred in him a queer vague aching—as it were
the ghost of an impersonal jealousy; and a feeling, too, more
generous, of pity for that love so early lost. All over in a few
poor months! Well, well! He looked at his watch before entering
the coppice—only a quarter past, twenty-five minutes to wait! And
then, turning the corner of the path, he saw her exactly where he
had seen her the first time, on the log; and realised that she
must have come by the earlier train to sit there alone for a
couple of hours at least. Two hours of her society missed! What
memory could make that log so dear to her? His face showed what
he was thinking, for she said at once:

“Forgive me, Uncle Jolyon; it was here that I first knew.”

“Yes, yes; there it is for you whenever you like. You’re looking
a little Londony; you’re giving too many lessons.”

That she should have to give lessons worried him. Lessons to a
parcel of young girls thumping out scales with their thick
fingers.

“Where do you go to give them?” he asked.

“They’re mostly Jewish families, luckily.”

Old Jolyon stared; to all Forsytes Jews seem strange and
doubtful.

“They love music, and they’re very kind.”

“They had better be, by George!” He took her arm—his side always
hurt him a little going uphill—and said:

“Did you ever see anything like those buttercups? They came like
that in a night.”

Her eyes seemed really to fly over the field, like bees after the
flowers and the honey. “I wanted you to see them—wouldn’t let
them turn the cows in yet.” Then, remembering that she had come
to talk about Bosinney, he pointed to the clock-tower over the
stables:

“I expect _he_ wouldn’t have let me put that there—had no notion
of time, if I remember.”

But, pressing his arm to her, she talked of flowers instead, and
he knew it was done that he might not feel she came because of
her dead lover.

“The best flower I can show you,” he said, with a sort of
triumph, “is my little sweet. She’ll be back from Church
directly. There’s something about her which reminds me a little
of you,” and it did not seem to him peculiar that he had put it
thus, instead of saying: “There’s something about you which
reminds me a little of her.” Ah! And here she was!

Holly, followed closely by her elderly French governess, whose
digestion had been ruined twenty-two years ago in the siege of
Strasbourg, came rushing towards them from under the oak tree.
She stopped about a dozen yards away, to pat Balthasar and
pretend that this was all she had in her mind. Old Jolyon, who
knew better, said:

“Well, my darling, here’s the lady in grey I promised you.”

Holly raised herself and looked up. He watched the two of them
with a twinkle, Irene smiling, Holly beginning with grave
inquiry, passing into a shy smile too, and then to something
deeper. She had a sense of beauty, that child—knew what was what!
He enjoyed the sight of the kiss between them.

“Mrs. Heron, Mam’zelle Beauce. Well, Mam’zelle—good sermon?”

For, now that he had not much more time before him, the only part
of the service connected with this world absorbed what interest
in church remained to him. Mam’zelle Beauce stretched out a
spidery hand clad in a black kid glove—she had been in the best
families—and the rather sad eyes of her lean yellowish face
seemed to ask: “Are you well-brrred?” Whenever Holly or Jolly did
anything unpleasing to her—a not uncommon occurrence—she would
say to them: “The little Tayleurs never did that—they were such
well-brrred little children.” Jolly hated the little Tayleurs;
Holly wondered dreadfully how it was she fell so short of them.
“A thin rum little soul,” old Jolyon thought her—Mam’zelle
Beauce.

Luncheon was a successful meal, the mushrooms which he himself
had picked in the mushroom house, his chosen strawberries, and
another bottle of the Steinberg cabinet filled him with a certain
aromatic spirituality, and a conviction that he would have a
touch of eczema to-morrow.

After lunch they sat under the oak tree drinking Turkish coffee.
It was no matter of grief to him when Mademoiselle Beauce
withdrew to write her Sunday letter to her sister, whose future
had been endangered in the past by swallowing a pin—an event held
up daily in warning to the children to eat slowly and digest what
they had eaten. At the foot of the bank, on a carriage rug, Holly
and the dog Balthasar teased and loved each other, and in the
shade old Jolyon with his legs crossed and his cigar luxuriously
savoured, gazed at Irene sitting in the swing. A light, vaguely
swaying, grey figure with a fleck of sunlight here and there upon
it, lips just opened, eyes dark and soft under lids a little
drooped. She looked content; surely it did her good to come and
see him! The selfishness of age had not set its proper grip on
him, for he could still feel pleasure in the pleasure of others,
realising that what he wanted, though much, was not quite all
that mattered.

“It’s quiet here,” he said; “you mustn’t come down if you find it
dull. But it’s a pleasure to see you. My little sweet is the only
face which gives me any pleasure, except yours.”

From her smile he knew that she was not beyond liking to be
appreciated, and this reassured him. “That’s not humbug,” he
said. “I never told a woman I admired her when I didn’t. In fact
I don’t know when I’ve told a woman I admired her, except my wife
in the old days; and wives are funny.” He was silent, but resumed
abruptly:

“She used to expect me to say it more often than I felt it, and
there we were.” Her face looked mysteriously troubled, and,
afraid that he had said something painful, he hurried on: “When
my little sweet marries, I hope she’ll find someone who knows
what women feel. I shan’t be here to see it, but there’s too much
topsy-turvydom in marriage; I don’t want her to pitch up against
that.” And, aware that he had made bad worse, he added: “That dog
_will_ scratch.”

A silence followed. Of what was she thinking, this pretty
creature whose life was spoiled; who had done with love, and yet
was made for love? Some day when he was gone, perhaps, she would
find another mate—not so disorderly as that young fellow who had
got himself run over. Ah! but her husband?

“Does Soames never trouble you?” he asked.

She shook her head. Her face had closed up suddenly. For all her
softness there was something irreconcilable about her. And a
glimpse of light on the inexorable nature of sex antipathies
strayed into a brain which, belonging to early Victorian
civilisation—so much older than this of his old age—had never
thought about such primitive things.

“That’s a comfort,” he said. “You can see the Grand Stand to-day.
Shall we take a turn round?”

Through the flower and fruit garden, against whose high outer
walls peach trees and nectarines were trained to the sun, through
the stables, the vinery, the mushroom house, the asparagus beds,
the rosery, the summer-house, he conducted her—even into the
kitchen garden to see the tiny green peas which Holly loved to
scoop out of their pods with her finger, and lick up from the
palm of her little brown hand. Many delightful things he showed
her, while Holly and the dog Balthasar danced ahead, or came to
them at intervals for attention. It was one of the happiest
afternoons he had ever spent, but it tired him and he was glad to
sit down in the music room and let her give him tea. A special
little friend of Holly’s had come in—a fair child with short hair
like a boy’s. And the two sported in the distance, under the
stairs, on the stairs, and up in the gallery. Old Jolyon begged
for Chopin. She played studies, mazurkas, waltzes, till the two
children, creeping near, stood at the foot of the piano their
dark and golden heads bent forward, listening. Old Jolyon
watched.

“Let’s see you dance, you two!”

Shyly, with a false start, they began. Bobbing and circling,
earnest, not very adroit, they went past and past his chair to
the strains of that waltz. He watched them and the face of her
who was playing turned smiling towards those little dancers
thinking:

“Sweetest picture I’ve seen for ages.”

A voice said:

“Hollee! _Mais enfin—qu’est-ce que tu fais la—danser, le
dimanche! Viens, donc!_”

But the children came close to old Jolyon, knowing that he would
save them, and gazed into a face which was decidedly “caught
out.”

“Better the day, better the deed, Mam’zelle. It’s all my doing.
Trot along, chicks, and have your tea.”

And, when they were gone, followed by the dog Balthasar, who took
every meal, he looked at Irene with a twinkle and said:

“Well, there we are! Aren’t they sweet? Have you any little ones
among your pupils?”

“Yes, three—two of them darlings.”

“Pretty?”

“Lovely!”

Old Jolyon sighed; he had an insatiable appetite for the very
young. “My little sweet,” he said, “is devoted to music; she’ll
be a musician some day. You wouldn’t give me your opinion of her
playing, I suppose?”

“Of course I will.”

“You wouldn’t like—” but he stifled the words “to give her
lessons.” The idea that she gave lessons was unpleasant to him;
yet it would mean that he would see her regularly. She left the
piano and came over to his chair.

“I would like, very much; but there is—June. When are they coming
back?”

Old Jolyon frowned. “Not till the middle of next month. What does
that matter?”

“You said June had forgiven me; but she could never forget, Uncle
Jolyon.”

Forget! She _must_ forget, if he wanted her to.

But as if answering, Irene shook her head. “You know she
couldn’t; one doesn’t forget.”

Always that wretched past! And he said with a sort of vexed
finality:

“Well, we shall see.”

He talked to her an hour or more, of the children, and a hundred
little things, till the carriage came round to take her home. And
when she had gone he went back to his chair, and sat there
smoothing his face and chin, dreaming over the day.

That evening after dinner he went to his study and took a sheet
of paper. He stayed for some minutes without writing, then rose
and stood under the masterpiece “Dutch Fishing Boats at Sunset.”
He was not thinking of that picture, but of his life. He was
going to leave her something in his Will; nothing could so have
stirred the stilly deeps of thought and memory. He was going to
leave her a portion of his wealth, of his aspirations, deeds,
qualities, work—all that had made that wealth; going to leave
her, too, a part of all he had missed in life, by his sane and
steady pursuit of wealth. All! What had he missed? “Dutch Fishing
Boats” responded blankly; he crossed to the French window, and
drawing the curtain aside, opened it. A wind had got up, and one
of last year’s oak leaves which had somehow survived the
gardener’s brooms, was dragging itself with a tiny clicking
rustle along the stone terrace in the twilight. Except for that
it was very quiet out there, and he could smell the heliotrope
watered not long since. A bat went by. A bird uttered its last
“cheep.” And right above the oak tree the first star shone. Faust
in the opera had bartered his soul for some fresh years of youth.
Morbid notion! No such bargain was possible, that was _real_
tragedy! No making oneself new again for love or life or
anything. Nothing left to do but enjoy beauty from afar off while
you could, and leave it something in your Will. But how much?
And, as if he could not make that calculation looking out into
the mild freedom of the country night, he turned back and went up
to the chimney-piece. There were his pet bronzes—a Cleopatra with
the asp at her breast; a Socrates; a greyhound playing with her
puppy; a strong man reining in some horses. “They last!” he
thought, and a pang went through his heart. They had a thousand
years of life before them!

“How much?” Well! enough at all events to save her getting old
before her time, to keep the lines out of her face as long as
possible, and grey from soiling that bright hair. He might live
another five years. She would be well over thirty by then. “How
much?” She had none of his blood in her! In loyalty to the tenor
of his life for forty years and more, ever since he married and
founded that mysterious thing, a family, came this warning
thought—None of his blood, no right to anything! It was a luxury
then, this notion. An extravagance, a petting of an old man’s
whim, one of those things done in dotage. His real future was
vested in those who had his blood, in whom he would live on when
he was gone. He turned away from the bronzes and stood looking at
the old leather chair in which he had sat and smoked so many
hundreds of cigars. And suddenly he seemed to see her sitting
there in her grey dress, fragrant, soft, dark-eyed, graceful,
looking up at him. Why! She cared nothing for him, really; all
she cared for was that lost lover of hers. But she was there,
whether she would or no, giving him pleasure with her beauty and
grace. One had no right to inflict an old man’s company, no right
to ask her down to play to him and let him look at her—for no
reward! Pleasure must be paid for in this world. “How much?”
After all, there was plenty; his son and his three grandchildren
would never miss that little lump. He had made it himself, nearly
every penny; he could leave it where he liked, allow himself this
little pleasure. He went back to the bureau. “Well, I’m going
to,” he thought, “let them think what they like. I’m going to!”
And he sat down.

“How much?” Ten thousand, twenty thousand—how much? If only with
his money he could buy one year, one month of youth. And startled
by that thought, he wrote quickly:

“DEAR HERRING,—Draw me a codicil to this effect: “I leave to my
niece Irene Forsyte, born Irene Heron, by which name she now
goes, fifteen thousand pounds free of legacy duty.”

“Yours faithfully,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”

When he had sealed and stamped the envelope, he went back to the
window and drew in a long breath. It was dark, but many stars
shone now.

IV

He woke at half-past two, an hour which long experience had
taught him brings panic intensity to all awkward thoughts.
Experience had also taught him that a further waking at the
proper hour of eight showed the folly of such panic. On this
particular morning the thought which gathered rapid momentum was
that if he became ill, at his age not improbable, he would not
see her. From this it was but a step to realisation that he would
be cut off, too, when his son and June returned from Spain. How
could he justify desire for the company of one who had
stolen—early morning does not mince words—June’s lover? That
lover was dead; but June was a stubborn little thing;
warm-hearted, but stubborn as wood, and—quite true—not one who
forgot! By the middle of next month they would be back. He had
barely five weeks left to enjoy the new interest which had come
into what remained of his life. Darkness showed up to him
absurdly clear the nature of his feeling. Admiration for beauty—a
craving to see that which delighted his eyes.

Preposterous, at his age! And yet—what other reason was there for
asking June to undergo such painful reminder, and how prevent his
son and his son’s wife from thinking him very queer? He would be
reduced to sneaking up to London, which tired him; and the least
indisposition would cut him off even from that. He lay with eyes
open, setting his jaw against the prospect, and calling himself
an old fool, while his heart beat loudly, and then seemed to stop
beating altogether. He had seen the dawn lighting the window
chinks, heard the birds chirp and twitter, and the cocks crow,
before he fell asleep again, and awoke tired but sane. Five weeks
before he need bother, at his age an eternity! But that early
morning panic had left its mark, had slightly fevered the will of
one who had always had his own way. He would see her as often as
he wished! Why not go up to town and make that codicil at his
solicitor’s instead of writing about it; she might like to go to
the opera! But, by train, for he would not have that fat chap
Beacon grinning behind his back. Servants were such fools; and,
as likely as not, they had known all the past history of Irene
and young Bosinney—servants knew everything, and suspected the
rest. He wrote to her that morning:

“MY DEAR IRENE,—I have to be up in town to-morrow. If you would
like to have a look in at the opera, come and dine with me
quietly ....”
But where? It was decades since he had dined anywhere in
London save at his Club or at a private house. Ah! that
new-fangled place close to Covent Garden....
“Let me have a line to-morrow morning to the Piedmont Hotel
whether to expect you there at 7 o’clock.

“Yours affectionately,
“JOLYON FORSYTE.”

She would understand that he just wanted to give her a little
pleasure; for the idea that she should guess he had this itch to
see her was instinctively unpleasant to him; it was not seemly
that one so old should go out of his way to see beauty,
especially in a woman.

The journey next day, short though it was, and the visit to his
lawyer’s, tired him. It was hot too, and after dressing for
dinner he lay down on the sofa in his bedroom to rest a little.
He must have had a sort of fainting fit, for he came to himself
feeling very queer; and with some difficulty rose and rang the
bell. Why! it was past seven! And there he was and she would be
waiting. But suddenly the dizziness came on again, and he was
obliged to relapse on the sofa. He heard the maid’s voice say:

“Did you ring, sir?”

“Yes, come here”; he could not see her clearly, for the cloud in
front of his eyes. “I’m not well, I want some sal volatile.”

“Yes, sir.” Her voice sounded frightened.

Old Jolyon made an effort.

“Don’t go. Take this message to my niece—a lady waiting in the
hall—a lady in grey. Say Mr. Forsyte is not well—the heat. He is
very sorry; if he is not down directly, she is not to wait
dinner.”

When she was gone, he thought feebly: “Why did I say a lady in
grey—she may be in anything. Sal volatile!” He did not go off
again, yet was not conscious of how Irene came to be standing
beside him, holding smelling salts to his nose, and pushing a
pillow up behind his head. He heard her say anxiously: “Dear
Uncle Jolyon, what is it?” was dimly conscious of the soft
pressure of her lips on his hand; then drew a long breath of
smelling salts, suddenly discovered strength in them, and
sneezed.

“Ha!” he said, “it’s nothing. How did you get here? Go down and
dine—the tickets are on the dressing-table. I shall be all right
in a minute.”

He felt her cool hand on his forehead, smelled violets, and sat
divided between a sort of pleasure and a determination to be all
right.

“Why! You _are_ in grey!” he said. “Help me up.” Once on his feet
he gave himself a shake.

“What business had I to go off like that!” And he moved very
slowly to the glass. What a cadaverous chap! Her voice, behind
him, murmured:

“You mustn’t come down, Uncle; you must rest.”

“Fiddlesticks! A glass of champagne’ll soon set me to rights. I
can’t have you missing the opera.”

But the journey down the corridor was troublesome. What carpets
they had in these newfangled places, so thick that you tripped up
in them at every step! In the lift he noticed how concerned she
looked, and said with the ghost of a twinkle:

“I’m a pretty host.”

When the lift stopped he had to hold firmly to the seat to
prevent its slipping under him; but after soup and a glass of
champagne he felt much better, and began to enjoy an infirmity
which had brought such solicitude into her manner towards him.

“I should have liked you for a daughter,” he said suddenly; and
watching the smile in her eyes, went on:

“You mustn’t get wrapped up in the past at your time of life;
plenty of that when you get to my age. That’s a nice dress—I like
the style.”

“I made it myself.”

Ah! A woman who could make herself a pretty frock had not lost
her interest in life.

“Make hay while the sun shines,” he said; “and drink that up. I
want to see some colour in your cheeks. We mustn’t waste life; it
doesn’t do. There’s a new Marguerite to-night; let’s hope she
won’t be fat. And Mephisto—anything more dreadful than a fat chap
playing the Devil I can’t imagine.”

But they did not go to the opera after all, for in getting up
from dinner the dizziness came over him again, and she insisted
on his staying quiet and going to bed early. When he parted from
her at the door of the hotel, having paid the cabman to drive her
to Chelsea, he sat down again for a moment to enjoy the memory of
her words: “You _are_ such a darling to me, Uncle Jolyon!” Why!
Who wouldn’t be! He would have liked to stay up another day and
take her to the Zoo, but two days running of him would bore her
to death. No, he must wait till next Sunday; she had promised to
come then. They would settle those lessons for Holly, if only for
a month. It would be something. That little Mam’zelle Beauce
wouldn’t like it, but she would have to lump it. And crushing his
old opera hat against his chest he sought the lift.

He drove to Waterloo next morning, struggling with a desire to
say: “Drive me to Chelsea.” But his sense of proportion was too
strong. Besides, he still felt shaky, and did not want to risk
another aberration like that of last night, away from home.
Holly, too, was expecting him, and what he had in his bag for
her. Not that there was any cupboard love in his little sweet—she
was a bundle of affection. Then, with the rather bitter cynicism
of the old, he wondered for a second whether it was not cupboard
love which made Irene put up with him. No, she was not that sort
either. She had, if anything, too little notion of how to butter
her bread, no sense of property, poor thing! Besides, he had not
breathed a word about that codicil, nor should he—sufficient unto
the day was the good thereof.

In the victoria which met him at the station Holly was
restraining the dog Balthasar, and their caresses made “jubey”
his drive home. All the rest of that fine hot day and most of the
next he was content and peaceful, reposing in the shade, while
the long lingering sunshine showered gold on the lawns and the
flowers. But on Thursday evening at his lonely dinner he began to
count the hours; sixty-five till he would go down to meet her
again in the little coppice, and walk up through the fields at
her side. He had intended to consult the doctor about his
fainting fit, but the fellow would be sure to insist on quiet, no
excitement and all that; and he did not mean to be tied by the
leg, did not want to be told of an infirmity—if there were one,
could not afford to hear of it at his time of life, now that this
new interest had come. And he carefully avoided making any
mention of it in a letter to his son. It would only bring them
back with a run! How far this silence was due to consideration
for their pleasure, how far to regard for his own, he did not
pause to consider.

That night in his study he had just finished his cigar and was
dozing off, when he heard the rustle of a gown, and was conscious
of a scent of violets. Opening his eyes he saw her, dressed in
grey, standing by the fireplace, holding out her arms. The odd
thing was that, though those arms seemed to hold nothing, they
were curved as if round someone’s neck, and her own neck was bent
back, her lips open, her eyes closed. She vanished at once, and
there were the mantelpiece and his bronzes. But those bronzes and
the mantelpiece had not been there when she was, only the
fireplace and the wall! Shaken and troubled, he got up. “I must
take medicine,” he thought; “I can’t be well.” His heart beat too
fast, he had an asthmatic feeling in the chest; and going to the
window, he opened it to get some air. A dog was barking far away,
one of the dogs at Gage’s farm no doubt, beyond the coppice. A
beautiful still night, but dark. “I dropped off,” he mused,
“that’s it! And yet I’ll swear my eyes were open!” A sound like a
sigh seemed to answer.

“What’s that?” he said sharply, “who’s there?”

Putting his hand to his side to still the beating of his heart,
he stepped out on the terrace. Something soft scurried by in the
dark. “Shoo!” It was that great grey cat. “Young Bosinney was
like a great cat!” he thought. “It was him in there, that
she—that she was—He’s got her still!” He walked to the edge of
the terrace, and looked down into the darkness; he could just see
the powdering of the daisies on the unmown lawn. Here to-day and
gone to-morrow! And there came the moon, who saw all, young and
old, alive and dead, and didn’t care a dump! His own turn soon.
For a single day of youth he would give what was left! And he
turned again towards the house. He could see the windows of the
night nursery up there. His little sweet would be asleep. “Hope
that dog won’t wake her!” he thought. “What is it makes us love,
and makes us die! I must go to bed.”

And across the terrace stones, growing grey in the moonlight, he
passed back within.

V

How should an old man live his days if not in dreaming of his
well-spent past? In that, at all events, there is no agitating
warmth, only pale winter sunshine. The shell can withstand the
gentle beating of the dynamos of memory. The present he should
distrust; the future shun. From beneath thick shade he should
watch the sunlight creeping at his toes. If there be sun of
summer, let him not go out into it, mistaking it for the
Indian-summer sun! Thus peradventure he shall decline softly,
slowly, imperceptibly, until impatient Nature clutches his
wind-pipe and he gasps away to death some early morning before
the world is aired, and they put on his tombstone: “In the
fulness of years!” Yea! If he preserve his principles in perfect
order, a Forsyte may live on long after he is dead.

Old Jolyon was conscious of all this, and yet there was in him
that which transcended Forsyteism. For it is written that a
Forsyte shall not love beauty more than reason; nor his own way
more than his own health. And something beat within him in these
days that with each throb fretted at the thinning shell. His
sagacity knew this, but it knew too that he could not stop that
beating, nor would if he could. And yet, if you had told him he
was living on his capital, he would have stared you down. No, no;
a man did not live on his capital; it was not done! The
shibboleths of the past are ever more real than the actualities
of the present. And he, to whom living on one’s capital had
always been anathema, could not have borne to have applied so
gross a phrase to his own case. Pleasure is healthful; beauty
good to see; to live again in the youth of the young—and what
else on earth was he doing!

Methodically, as had been the way of his whole life, he now
arranged his time. On Tuesdays he journeyed up to town by train;
Irene came and dined with him. And they went to the opera. On
Thursdays he drove to town, and, putting that fat chap and his
horses up, met her in Kensington Gardens, picking up the carriage
after he had left her, and driving home again in time for dinner.
He threw out the casual formula that he had business in London on
those two days. On Wednesdays and Saturdays she came down to give
Holly music lessons. The greater the pleasure he took in her
society, the more scrupulously fastidious he became, just a
matter-of-fact and friendly uncle. Not even in feeling, really,
was he more—for, after all, there was his age. And yet, if she
were late he fidgeted himself to death. If she missed coming,
which happened twice, his eyes grew sad as an old dog’s, and he
failed to sleep.

And so a month went by—a month of summer in the fields, and in
his heart, with summer’s heat and the fatigue thereof. Who could
have believed a few weeks back that he would have looked forward
to his son’s and his grand-daughter’s return with something like
dread! There was such a delicious freedom, such recovery of that
independence a man enjoys before he founds a family, about these
weeks of lovely weather, and this new companionship with one who
demanded nothing, and remained always a little unknown, retaining
the fascination of mystery. It was like a draught of wine to him
who has been drinking water for so long that he has almost
forgotten the stir wine brings to his blood, the narcotic to his
brain. The flowers were coloured brighter, scents and music and
the sunlight had a living value—were no longer mere reminders of
past enjoyment. There was something now to live for which stirred
him continually to anticipation. He lived in that, not in
retrospection; the difference is considerable to any so old as
he. The pleasures of the table, never of much consequence to one
naturally abstemious, had lost all value. He ate little, without
knowing what he ate; and every day grew thinner and more worn to
look at. He was again a “threadpaper”. and to this thinned form
his massive forehead, with hollows at the temples, gave more
dignity than ever. He was very well aware that he ought to see
the doctor, but liberty was too sweet. He could not afford to pet
his frequent shortness of breath and the pain in his side at the
expense of liberty. Return to the vegetable existence he had led
among the agricultural journals with the life-size mangold
wurzels, before this new attraction came into his life—no! He
exceeded his allowance of cigars. Two a day had always been his
rule. Now he smoked three and sometimes four—a man will when he
is filled with the creative spirit. But very often he thought: “I
must give up smoking, and coffee; I must give up rattling up to
town.” But he did not; there was no one in any sort of authority
to notice him, and this was a priceless boon. The servants
perhaps wondered, but they were, naturally, dumb. Mam’zelle
Beauce was too concerned with her own digestion, and too
“well-brrred” to make personal allusions. Holly had not as yet an
eye for the relative appearance of him who was her plaything and
her god. It was left for Irene herself to beg him to eat more, to
rest in the hot part of the day, to take a tonic, and so forth.
But she did not tell him that she was the cause of his
thinness—for one cannot see the havoc oneself is working. A man
of eighty-five has no passions, but the Beauty which produces
passion works on in the old way, till death closes the eyes which
crave the sight of Her.

On the first day of the second week in July he received a letter
from his son in Paris to say that they would all be back on
Friday. This had always been more sure than Fate; but, with the
pathetic improvidence given to the old, that they may endure to
the end, he had never quite admitted it. Now he did, and
something would have to be done. He had ceased to be able to
imagine life without this new interest, but that which is not
imagined sometimes exists, as Forsytes are perpetually finding to
their cost. He sat in his old leather chair, doubling up the
letter, and mumbling with his lips the end of an unlighted cigar.
After to-morrow his Tuesday expeditions to town would have to be
abandoned. He could still drive up, perhaps, once a week, on the
pretext of seeing his man of business. But even that would be
dependent on his health, for now they would begin to fuss about
him. The lessons! The lessons must go on! She must swallow down
her scruples, and June must put her feelings in her pocket. She
had done so once, on the day after the news of Bosinney’s death;
what she had done then, she could surely do again now. Four years
since that injury was inflicted on her—not Christian to keep the
memory of old sores alive. June’s will was strong, but his was
stronger, for his sands were running out. Irene was soft, surely
she would do this for him, subdue her natural shrinking, sooner
than give him pain! The lessons must continue; for if they did,
he was secure. And lighting his cigar at last, he began trying to
shape out how to put it to them all, and explain this strange
intimacy; how to veil and wrap it away from the naked truth—that
he could not bear to be deprived of the sight of beauty. Ah!
Holly! Holly was fond of her, Holly liked her lessons. She would
save him—his little sweet! And with that happy thought he became
serene, and wondered what he had been worrying about so
fearfully. He must not worry, it left him always curiously weak,
and as if but half present in his own body.

That evening after dinner he had a return of the dizziness,
though he did not faint. He would not ring the bell, because he
knew it would mean a fuss, and make his going up on the morrow
more conspicuous. When one grew old, the whole world was in
conspiracy to limit freedom, and for what reason?—just to keep
the breath in him a little longer. He did not want it at such
cost. Only the dog Balthasar saw his lonely recovery from that
weakness; anxiously watched his master go to the sideboard and
drink some brandy, instead of giving him a biscuit. When at last
old Jolyon felt able to tackle the stairs he went up to bed. And,
though still shaky next morning, the thought of the evening
sustained and strengthened him. It was always such a pleasure to
give her a good dinner—he suspected her of undereating when she
was alone; and, at the opera to watch her eyes glow and brighten,
the unconscious smiling of her lips. She hadn’t much pleasure,
and this was the last time he would be able to give her that
treat. But when he was packing his bag he caught himself wishing
that he had not the fatigue of dressing for dinner before him,
and the exertion, too, of telling her about June’s return.

The opera that evening was “Carmen,” and he chose the last
_entr’acte_ to break the news, instinctively putting it off till
the latest moment.

She took it quietly, queerly; in fact, he did not know how she
had taken it before the wayward music lifted up again and silence
became necessary. The mask was down over her face, that mask
behind which so much went on that he could not see. She wanted
time to think it over, no doubt! He would not press her, for she
would be coming to give her lesson to-morrow afternoon, and he
should see her then when she had got used to the idea. In the cab
he talked only of the Carmen; he had seen better in the old days,
but this one was not bad at all. When he took her hand to say
good-night, she bent quickly forward and kissed his forehead.

“Good-bye, dear Uncle Jolyon, you have been so sweet to me.”

“To-morrow then,” he said. “Good-night. Sleep well.” She echoed
softly: “Sleep well” and from the cab window, already moving
away, he saw her face screwed round towards him, and her hand put
out in a gesture which seemed to linger.

He sought his room slowly. They never gave him the same, and he
could not get used to these “spick-and-spandy” bedrooms with new
furniture and grey-green carpets sprinkled all over with pink
roses. He was wakeful and that wretched Habanera kept throbbing
in his head.

His French had never been equal to its words, but its sense he
knew, if it had any sense, a gipsy thing—wild and unaccountable.
Well, there _was_ in life something which upset all your care and
plans—something which made men and women dance to its pipes. And
he lay staring from deep-sunk eyes into the darkness where the
unaccountable held sway. You thought you had hold of life, but it
slipped away behind you, took you by the scruff of the neck,
forced you here and forced you there, and then, likely as not,
squeezed life out of you! It took the very stars like that, he
shouldn’t wonder, rubbed their noses together and flung them
apart; it had never done playing its pranks. Five million people
in this great blunderbuss of a town, and all of them at the mercy
of that Life-Force, like a lot of little dried peas hopping about
on a board when you struck your fist on it. Ah, well! Himself
would not hop much longer—a good long sleep would do him good!

How hot it was up here!—how noisy! His forehead burned; she had
kissed it just where he always worried; just there—as if she had
known the very place and wanted to kiss it all away for him. But,
instead, her lips left a patch of grievous uneasiness. She had
never spoken in quite that voice, had never before made that
lingering gesture or looked back at him as she drove away.

He got out of bed and pulled the curtains aside; his room faced
down over the river. There was little air, but the sight of that
breadth of water flowing by, calm, eternal, soothed him. “The
great thing,” he thought “is not to make myself a nuisance. I’ll
think of my little sweet, and go to sleep.” But it was long
before the heat and throbbing of the London night died out into
the short slumber of the summer morning. And old Jolyon had but
forty winks.

When he reached home next day he went out to the flower garden,
and with the help of Holly, who was very delicate with flowers,
gathered a great bunch of carnations. They were, he told her, for
“the lady in grey”—a name still bandied between them; and he put
them in a bowl in his study where he meant to tackle Irene the
moment she came, on the subject of June and future lessons. Their
fragrance and colour would help. After lunch he lay down, for he
felt very tired, and the carriage would not bring her from the
station till four o’clock. But as the hour approached he grew
restless, and sought the schoolroom, which overlooked the drive.
The sun-blinds were down, and Holly was there with Mademoiselle
Beauce, sheltered from the heat of a stifling July day, attending
to their silkworms. Old Jolyon had a natural antipathy to these
methodical creatures, whose heads and colour reminded him of
elephants; who nibbled such quantities of holes in nice green
leaves; and smelled, as he thought, horrid. He sat down on a
chintz-covered windowseat whence he could see the drive, and get
what air there was; and the dog Balthasar who appreciated chintz
on hot days, jumped up beside him. Over the cottage piano a
violet dust-sheet, faded almost to grey, was spread, and on it
the first lavender, whose scent filled the room. In spite of the
coolness here, perhaps because of that coolness the beat of life
vehemently impressed his ebbed-down senses. Each sunbeam which
came through the chinks had annoying brilliance; that dog smelled
very strong; the lavender perfume was overpowering; those
silkworms heaving up their grey-green backs seemed horribly
alive; and Holly’s dark head bent over them had a wonderfully
silky sheen. A marvellous cruelly strong thing was life when you
were old and weak; it seemed to mock you with its multitude of
forms and its beating vitality. He had never, till those last few
weeks, had this curious feeling of being with one half of him
eagerly borne along in the stream of life, and with the other
half left on the bank, watching that helpless progress. Only when
Irene was with him did he lose this double consciousness.

Holly turned her head, pointed with her little brown fist to the
piano—for to point with a finger was not “well-brrred”—and said
slyly:

“Look at the ‘lady in grey,’ Gran; isn’t she pretty to-day?”