The Forsyte Saga, Volume 2 Page 15

  But was it really so perfectly possible – even if pity was posh? How be perfect to Michael, when the slightest slip might reveal to him that she was being perfect to Wilfrid; how be perfect to Wilfrid, when every time she was perfect to Michael would be a dagger in Wilfrid’s heart? And if – if her physical doubt should mature into certainty, how be perfect mother to the certainty, when she was either torturing two men, or lying to them like a trooperess? Not so perfectly possible as all that! ‘If only I were all French!’ thought Fleur.…

  The clicking door startled her – the reason that she was not all French was coming in. He looked very grey, as if he had been thinking too much. He kissed her, and sat down moodily before the fire.

  ‘Have you come for the night, Dad?’

  ‘If I may,’ murmured Soames. ‘Business.’

  ‘Anything unpleasant, ducky?’

  Soames looked up as if startled.

  ‘Unpleasant? Why should it be unpleasant?’

  ‘I only thought from your face.’

  Soames grunted. ‘This Ruhr!’ he said. ‘I’ve brought you a picture. Chinese!’

  ‘Oh, Dad! How jolly!’

  ‘It isn’t,’ said Soames; ‘it’s a monkey eating fruit.’

  ‘But that’s perfect! Where is it – in the hall?’

  Soames nodded.

  Stripping the coverings off the picture, Fleur brought it in, and setting it up on the jade-green settee, stood away and looked at it. The large white monkey with its brown haunting eyes, as if she had suddenly wrested its interest from the orange-like fruit in its crisped paw, the grey background, the empty rinds all round – bright splashes in a general ghostliness of colour, impressed her at once.

  ‘But, Dad, it’s a masterpiece – I’m sure it’s of a frightfully good period.’

  ‘I don’t know,’ said Soames. ‘I must look up the Chinese.’

  ‘But you oughtn’t to give it to me, it must be worth any amount. You ought to have it in your collection.’

  ‘They didn’t know its value,’ said Soames, and a faint smile illumined his features. ‘I gave three hundred for it. It’ll be safer here.’

  ‘Of course it’ll be safe. Only why safer?’

  Soames turned towards the picture.

  ‘I can’t tell. Anything may come of this.’

  ‘Of what, dear?’

  ‘Is “old Mont” coming in tonight?’

  ‘No, he’s at Lippinghall still.’

  ‘Well, it doesn’t matter – he’s no good.’

  Fleur took his hand and gave it a squeeze.

  ‘Tell me!’

  Soames’s tickled heart quivered. Fancy her wanting to know what was troubling him! But his sense of the becoming, and his fear of giving away his own alarm, forbade response.

  ‘Nothing you’d understand,’ he said. ‘Where are you going to hang it?’

  ‘There, I think; but we must wait for Michael.’

  Soames grumbled out:

  ‘I saw him just now at your aunt’s. Is that the way he attends to business?’

  ‘Perhaps,’ thought Fleur, ‘he was only on his way back to the office. Cork Street is more or less between! If he passed the end of it, he would think of Wilfrid, he might have been wanting to see him about books.’

  ‘Oh, here’s Ting! Well, darling!’

  The Chinese dog, let in, as it were, by Providence, seeing Soames, sat down suddenly with snub upturned eyes brilliant. ‘The expression of your face,’ he seemed to say, ‘pleases me. We belong to the past and could sing hymns together, old man.’

  ‘Funny little chap,’ said Soames: ‘he always knows me.’

  Fleur lifted him. ‘Come and see the new monkey, ducky.’

  ‘Don’t let him lick it.’

  Held rather firmly by his jade-green collar and confronted by an inexplicable piece of silk smelling of the past, Ting-a-ling raised his head higher and higher to correspond with the action of his nostrils, and his little tongue appeared, tentatively savouring the emanation of his country.

  ‘It’s a nice monkey, isn’t it, darling?’

  ‘No,’ said Ting-a-ling, rather clearly. ‘Put me down!’

  Restored to the floor, he sought a patch where the copper came through between two rugs, and licked it quietly.

  ‘Mr Aubrey Greene, ma’am!’

  ‘H’m!’ said Soames.

  The painter came gliding and glowing in; his bright hair slipping back, his green eyes sliding off.

  ‘Ah!’ he said, pointing to the floor. ‘That’s what I’ve come about.’

  Fleur followed his finger in amazement.

  ‘Ting!’ she said severely, ‘stop it! He will lick the copper, Aubrey.’

  ‘But how perfectly Chinese! They do everything we don’t.’

  ‘Dad – Aubrey Greene. My father’s just brought me this picture, Aubrey – isn’t it a gem?’

  The painter stood quite still, his eyes ceased sliding off, his hair ceased slipping back.

  ‘Phew!’ he said.

  Soames rose. He had waited for the flippant; but he recognized in the tone something reverential, if not aghast.

  ‘By George,’ said Aubrey Greene, ‘those eyes! Where did you pick it up, sir?’

  ‘It belonged to a cousin of mine – a racing man. It was his only picture.’

  ‘Good for him! He must have had taste.’

  Soames stared. The idea that George should have had taste almost appalled him.

  ‘No,’ he said, with a flash of inspiration: ‘What he liked about it was that it makes you feel uncomfortable.’

  ‘Same thing! I don’t know where I’ve seen a more pungent satire on human life.’

  ‘I don’t follow,’ said Soames dryly.

  ‘Why, it’s a perfect allegory, sir! Eat the fruits of life, scatter the rinds, and get copped doing it. When they’re still, a monkey’s eyes are the human tragedy incarnate. Look at them! He thinks there’s something beyond, and he’s sad or angry because he can’t get at it. That picture ought to be in the British Museum, sir, with the label: “Civilization, caught out.” ’

  ‘Well, it won’t be,’ said Fleur. ‘It’ll be here, labelled “The White Monkey.”’

  ‘Same thing.’

  ‘Cynicism,’ said Soames abruptly, ‘gets you nowhere. If you’d said “Modernity caught out”–’

  ‘I do, sir; but why be narrow? You don’t seriously suppose this age is worse than any other?’

  ‘Don’t I?’ said Soames. ‘In my belief the world reached its highest point in the eighties, and will never reach it again.’

  The painter stared.

  ‘That’s frightfully interesting. I wasn’t born, and I suppose you were about my age then, sir. You believed in God and drove in diligences.’

  Diligences! The word awakened in Soames a memory which somehow seemed appropriate.

  ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘and I can tell you a story of those days that you can’t match in these. When I was a youngster in Switzerland with my people, two of my sisters had some black cherries. When they’d eaten about half a dozen they discovered that they all had little maggots in them. An English climber there saw how upset they were, and ate the whole of the rest of the cherries – about two pounds – maggots, stones and all, just to show them. That was the sort of men they were then.’

  ‘Oh! Father!’

  ‘Gee! He must have been gone on them.’

  ‘No,’ said Soames, ‘not particularly. His name was Powley; he wore side-whiskers.’

  ‘Talking of God and diligences: I saw a hansom yesterday.’

  ‘More to the point if you’d seen God,’ thought Soames, but he did not say so; indeed, the thought surprised him, it was not the sort of thing he had ever seen himself.

  ‘You mayn’t know it, sir, but there’s more belief now than there was before the war – they’ve discovered that we’re not all body.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Fleur. ‘That reminds me, Aubrey. Do you know any mediums? Could I get one to com
e here? On our floor, with Michael outside the door, one would know there couldn’t be any hanky. Do the dark séance people ever go out? – they’re much more thrilling they say.’

  ‘Spiritualism!’ said Soames. ‘H’mph!’ He could not in half an hour have expressed himself more clearly.

  Aubrey Greene’s eyes slid off to Ting-a-ling. ‘I’ll see what I can do, if you’ll lend me your Peke for an hour or so tomorrow afternoon. I’d bring him back on a lead, and give him every luxury.’

  ‘What do you want him for?’

  ‘Michael sent me a most topping little model today. But, you see, she can’t smile.’

  ‘Michael?’

  ‘Yes. Something quite new; and ‘I’ve got a scheme. Her smile’s like sunlight going off an Italian valley; but when you tell her to, she can’t. I thought your Peke could make her, perhaps.’

  ‘May I come and see?’ said Fleur.

  ‘Yes, bring him tomorrow; but, if I can persuade her, it’ll be in the “altogether”.’

  ‘Oh! Will you get me a séance, if I lend you Ting?’

  ‘I will.’

  ‘H’mph!’ said Soames again. Séances, Italian sunlight, the ‘altogether’! It was time he got back to Elderson, and what was to be done now, and left this fiddling while Rome burned.

  ‘Good-bye, Mr Greene,’ he said; ‘I’ve got no time.’

  ‘Quite, sir,’ said Aubrey Greene.

  ‘Quite!’ mimicked Soames to himself, going out.

  Aubrey Greene took his departure a few minutes later, crossing a lady in the hall who was delivering her name to the manservant.

  Alone with her body, Fleur again passed her hands all over it. The ‘altogether’ – was a reminder of the dangers of dramatic conduct.

  Chapter Five

  FLEUR’S SOUL

  ‘MRS VAL DARTIE, ma’am.’

  A name which could not be distorted even by Coaker affected her like a finger applied suddenly to the head of the sciatic nerve. Holly! Not seen since the day when she did not marry Jon. Holly! A flood of remembrance – Wansdon, the Downs, the gravel pit, the apple orchard, the river, the copse at Robin Hill! No! It was not a pleasant sensation – to see Holly, and she said: ‘How awfully nice of you to come!’

  ‘I met your husband this afternoon at Green Street; he asked me. What a lovely room!’

  ‘Ting! Come and be introduced! This is Ting-a-ling; isn’t he perfect? He’s a little upset because of the new monkey. How’s Val, and dear Wansdon? It was too wonderfully peaceful.’

  ‘It’s a nice backwater. I don’t get tired of it.’

  ‘And –’ said Fleur, with a little laugh, ‘Jon?’

  ‘He’s growing peaches in North Carolina. British Columbia didn’t do.’

  ‘Oh! Is he married?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘I suppose he’ll marry an American.’

  ‘He isn’t twenty-two, you know.’

  ‘Good Lord!’ said Fleur: ‘Am I only twenty-one? I feel forty-eight.’

  ‘That’s living in the middle of things and seeing so many people –’

  ‘And getting to know none.’

  ‘But don’t you?’

  ‘No, it isn’t done. I mean we all call each other by our Christian names; but après –’

  ‘I like your husband very much.’

  ‘Oh! yes, Michael’s a dear. How’s June?’

  ‘I saw her yesterday – she’s got a new painter, of course – Claud Brains. I believe he’s what they call a Vertiginist.’

  Fleur bit her lip.

  ‘Yes, they’re quite common. I suppose June thinks he’s the only one.’

  ‘Well, she thinks he’s a genius.’

  ‘She’s wonderful.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Holly, ‘the most loyal creature in the world while it lasts. It’s like poultry farming – once they’re hatched. You never saw Boris Strumolowski?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Well, don’t.’

  ‘I know his bust of Michael’s uncle. It’s rather sane.’

  ‘Yes. June throught it a pot-boiler, and he never forgave her. Of course it was. As soon as her swan makes money, she looks round for another. She’s a darling.’

  ‘Yes,’ murmured Fleur; ‘I liked June.’

  Another flood of remembrance – from a tea-shop, from the river, from June’s little dining-room, from where in Green Street she had changed her wedding dress under the upward gaze of June’s blue eyes. She seized the monkey and held it up.

  ‘Isn’t it a picture of “life”?’ Would she have said that if Aubrey Greene hadn’t? Still it seemed very true at the moment.

  ‘Poor monkey!’ said Holly. ‘I’m always frightfully sorry for monkeys. But it’s marvellous, I think.’

  ‘Yes. I’m going to hang it here. If I can get one more I shall have done in this room; only people have so got on to Chinese things. This was luck – somebody died – George Forsyte, you know, the racing one.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Holly softly. She saw again her old kinsman’s japing eyes in the church when Fleur was being married, heard his throaty whisper: ‘Will she stay the course?’ And was she staying it, this pretty filly? ‘Wish she could get a rest. If only there were a desert handy!’ Well, one couldn’t ask a question so personal, and Holly took refuge in a general remark.

  ‘What do all you smart young people feel about life, nowadays, Fleur! when one’s not of it and has lived twenty years in South Africa, one still feels out of it.’

  ‘Life! Oh! well, we know it’s supposed to be a riddle, but we’ve given it up. We just want to have a good time because we don’t believe anything can last. But I don’t think we know how to have it. We just fly on, and hope for it. Of course, there’s art, but most of us aren’t artists; besides, expressionism – Michael says it’s got no inside. We gas about it, but I suppose it hasn’t. I see a frightful lot of writers and painters, you know; they’re supposed to be amusing.’

  Holly listened, amazed. Who would have thought that this girl saw? She might be seeing wrong, but anyway she saw!

  ‘Surely,’ she said, ‘you enjoy yourselves?’

  ‘Well, I like getting hold of nice things, and interesting people; I like seeing everything that’s new and worth while, or seems so at the moment. But that’s just how it is – nothing lasts. You see, I’m not of the “Pan-joys”, nor of the “new-faithfuls”.’

  ‘The new-faithfuls?’

  ‘Oh! don’t you know – it’s a sort of faith-healing done on oneself, not exactly the old “God-good, good-God!” sort; but a kind of mixture of will-power, psycho-analysis, and belief that everything will be all right on the night it you say it will. You must have come across them. They’re frightfully in earnest.’

  ‘I know,’ said Holly; ‘their eyes shine.’

  ‘I dare say. I don’t believe in them – I don’t believe in anyone; or anything – much. How can one?’

  ‘How about simple people, and hard work?’

  Fleur sighed. ‘I dare say. I will say for Michael – he’s not spoiled. Let’s have tea? Tea, Ting?’ and, turning up the lights, she rang the bell.

  When her unexpected visitor had gone, she sat very still before the fire. Today, when she had been so very nearly Wilfrid’s! So Jon was not married! Not that it made any odds! Things did not come round as they were expected to in books. And anyway sentiment was swosh! Cut it out! She tossed back her hair; and, getting hammer and nail, proceeded to hang the white monkey. Between the two tea-chests with their coloured pearl-shell figures, he would look his best. Since she couldn’t have Jon, what did it matter – Wilfrid or Michael, or both, or neither? Eat the orange in her hand, and throw away the rind! And suddenly she became aware that Michael was in the room. He had come in very quietly and was standing before the fire behind her. She gave him a quick look and said:

  ‘I’ve had Aubrey Greene here about a model you sent him, and Holly – Mrs Val Dartie – she said she’s seen you. Oh! and father’s brought us this. Isn’t it p
erfect?’

  Michael did not speak.

  ‘Anything the matter, Michael?’

  ‘No, nothing.’ He went up to the monkey. From behind him now Fleur searched his profile. Instinct told her of a change. Had he, after all, seen her going to Wilfrid’s – coming away?

  ‘Some monkey!’ he said. ‘By the way, have you any spare clothes you could give the wife of a poor snipe – nothing too swell?’

  She answered mechanically: ‘Yes, of course!’ while her brain worked furiously.

  ‘Would you put them out, then? I’m going to make up a bunch for him myself–they could go together.’

  Yes! He was quite unlike himself, as if the spring in him had run down. A sort of malaise overcame her. Michael not cheerful! It was like the fire going out on a cold day. And, perhaps for the first time, she was conscious that his cheerfulness was of real importance to her. She watched him pick up Ting-a-ling and sit down. And going up behind him, she bent over till her hair was against his cheek. Instead of rubbing his cheek on hers, he sat quite still, and her heart misgave her.