The Forsyte Saga, Volume 3 Read online

  Adrian had taken out his watch.

  ‘We just shan’t do it, I’m afraid. The traffic’s awful.’ And they sat, silent, jerked back and forth by the spasmodic efforts of the taxi.

  ‘I’ll never forget,’ said Adrian, suddenly, ‘in France once, passing a ‘maison d’aliénés’, as they call it – a great place back from the railway with a long iron grille in front. There was a poor devil standing upright with his arms raised and his legs apart, clutching at the grille, like an orang-outang. What’s death compared with that? Good clean earth, and the sky over you. I wish now they’d found him in the river.’

  ‘They may still; this is a bit of a wild-goose chase.’

  ‘Three minutes more,’ muttered Adrian; ‘we shan’t do it.’

  But as if animated by its national character the taxi gathered unnatural speed, and the traffic seemed to melt before it. They pulled up at the station with a jerk.

  ‘You ask at the first class, I’ll go for the third,’ said Hilary as they ran. ‘A parson gets more show.’

  ‘No,’ said Adrian; ‘if he’s gone, he’ll have gone first class; you ask there. If there’s any doubt – his eyes.’

  He watched Hilary’s lean face thrust into the opening and quickly drawn back.

  ‘He has!’ he said; ‘this train. Petworth! Rush!’

  The brothers ran, but as they reached the barrier the train began to move. Adrian would have run on, but Hilary grabbed his arm.

  ‘Steady, old man, we shall never get in; he’ll only see us, and that’ll spill it.’

  They walked back to the entrance with their heads down.

  ‘That was an amazing shot of yours, old boy,’ said Hilary: ‘What time does that train get down?’

  ‘Twelve twenty-three.’

  ‘Then we can do it in a car. Have you any money?’

  Adrian felt in his pockets. ‘Only eight and six,’ he said ruefully.

  ‘I’ve got just eleven bob. Awkward! I know! We’ll take a cab to young Fleur’s: if her car’s not out, she’d let us have it, and she or Michael would drive us. We must both be free of the car at the other end.’

  Adrian nodded, rather dazed at the success of his induction.

  At South Square Michael was out, but Fleur in. Adrian, who did not know her so well as Hilary, was surprised by the quickness with which she grasped the situation and produced the car. Within ten minutes, indeed, they were on the road with Fleur at the wheel.

  ‘I shall go through Dorking and Pulborough,’ she said, leaning back. ‘I can speed all the way after Dorking on that road. But, Uncle Hilary, what are you going to do if you get him?’

  At that simple but necessary question the brothers looked at each other. Fleur seemed to feel their indecision through the back of her head, for she stopped with a jerk in front of an imperilled dog, and, turning, said:

  ‘Would you like to think it over before we start?’

  Gazing from her short clear-cut face, the very spit of hard, calm, confident youth, to his brother’s long, shrewd face, wrinkled, and worn by the experiences of others and yet not hard, Adrian left it to Hilary to answer.

  ‘Let’s get on,’ said Hilary; ‘it’s a case of making the best of what turns up.’

  ‘When we pass a post-office,’ added Adrian, ‘please stop. I want to send a wire to Dinny.’

  Fleur nodded. ‘There’s one in the King’s Road, I must fill up, too, somewhere.’

  And the car slid on among the traffic.

  ‘What shall I say in the wire?’ asked Adrian. ‘Anything about Petworth?’

  Hilary shook his head.

  ‘Just that we think we’re on the right track.’

  When they had sent the wire there were only two hours left before the train arrived.

  ‘It’s fifty miles to Pulborough,’ said Fleur, ‘and I suppose about five on. I wonder if I can risk my petrol. I’ll see at Dorking.’ From that moment on she was lost to them, though the car was a closed saloon, giving all her attention to her driving.

  The two brothers sat silent with their eyes on the clock and speedometer.

  ‘I don’t often go joy-riding,’ said Hilary, softly: ‘What are you thinking of, old man?’

  ‘Of what on earth we’re going to do.’

  ‘If I were to think of that beforehand, in my job, I should be dead in a month. In a slum parish one lives, as in a jungle, surrounded by wild cats; one grows a sort of instinct and has to trust to it.’

  ‘Oh!’ said Adrian, ‘I live among the dead, and get no practice.’

  ‘Our niece drives well,’ said Hilary in a low voice. ‘Look at her neck. Isn’t that capability personified?’

  The neck, white, round and shingled, was held beautifully erect and gave a remarkable impression of quick close control of the body by the brain.

  For several miles after that they drove in silence.

  ‘Box Hill,’ said Hilary: ‘a thing once happened to me hereabouts I’ve never told you and never forgotten, it shows how awfully near the edge of mania we live.’ He sunk his voice and went on: ‘Remember that jolly parson Durcott we used to know? When I was at Beaker’s before I went to Harrow, he was a master there; he took me a walk one Sunday over Box Hill. Coming back in the train we were alone. We were ragging a little, when all of a sudden he seemed to go into a sort of frenzy, his eyes all greedy and wild. I hadn’t the least notion what he was after and was awfully scared. Then, suddenly, he seemed to get hold of himself again. Right out of the blue! Repressed sex, of course – regular mania for the moment – pretty horrible. A very nice fellow, too. There are forces, Adrian.’

  ‘Daemonic. And when they break the shell for good… Poor Ferse!’

  Fleur’s voice came back to them.

  ‘She’s beginning to go a bit wonky; I must fill up, Uncle Hilary. There’s a station close here.’

  ‘Right-o! ’

  The car drew up before the filling station.

  ‘It’s always slow work to Dorking,’ said Fleur, stretching: ‘we can get along now. Only thirty-two miles, and a good hour still. Have you thought?’

  ‘No,’ said Hilary, ‘we’ve avoided it like poison.’

  Fleur’s eyes, whose whites were so clear, flashed on him one of those direct glances which so convinced people of her intelligence.

  ‘Are you going to take him back in this? I wouldn’t, if I were you.’ And, taking out her case, she repaired her lips slightly, and powdered her short straight nose.

  Adrian watched her with a sort of awe. Youth, up to date, did not come very much his way. Not her few words, but the implications in them impressed him. What she meant was crudely this: Let him dree his weird – you can do nothing. Was she right? Were he and Hilary just pandering to the human instinct for interference; attempting to lay a blasphemous hand on Nature? And yet for Diana’s sake they must know what Ferse did, what he was going to do. For Ferse’s sake they must see, at least, that he did not fall into the wrong hands. On his brother’s face was a faint smile. He at least, thought Adrian, knew youth, had a brood of his own, and could tell how far the clear hard philosophy of youth would carry.

  They started again, trailing through the traffic of Dorking’s long and busy street.

  ‘Clear at last,’ said Fleur, turning her head, ‘if you really want to catch him, you shall;’ and she opened out to full speed. For the next quarter of an hour they flew along, past yellowing spinneys, fields and bits of furzy common dotted with geese and old horses, past village greens and village streets, and all the other evidences of a country life trying to retain its soul. And then the car, which had been travelling very smoothly, began to grate and bump.

  ‘Tyre gone!’ said Fleur, turning her head: ‘That’s torn it.’ She brought the car to a standstill, and they all got out. The off hind tyre was right down.

  ‘Pipe to!’ said Hilary, taking his coat off. ‘Jack her up, Adrian. I’ll get the spare wheel off.’

  Fleur’s head was lost in the tool-box, but her voice wa
s heard saying: ‘Too many cooks, better let me!’

  Adrian’s knowledge of cars was nil, his attitude to machinery helpless; he stood willingly aside, and watched them with admiration. They were cool, quick, efficient, but something was wrong with the jack.

  ‘Always like that,’ said Fleur ‘when you’re in a hurry.’

  Twenty minutes was lost before they were again in motion.

  ‘I can’t possibly do it now,’ she said, ‘but you’ll be able to pick up his tracks easily, if you really want to. The station’s right out beyond the town.’

  Through Billingshurst and Pulborough and over Stopham bridge, they travelled at full speed.

  ‘Better go for Petworth itself,’ said Hilary, ‘if he’s heading back for the town, we shall meet him.’

  ‘Am I to stop if we meet him?’

  ‘No, carry straight on past and then turn.’

  But they passed through Petworth and on for the mile and a half to the station without meeting him.

  ‘The train’s been in a good twenty minutes,’ said Adrian, ‘let’s ask.’

  A porter had taken the ticket of a gentleman in a blue overcoat and black hat. No! He had no luggage. He had gone off, towards the Downs. How long ago? Half an hour, maybe.

  Regaining the car hastily they made towards the Downs.

  ‘I remember,’ said Hilary, ‘a little further on there’s a turn to Sutton. The point will be whether he’s taken that or gone on up. There are some houses there somewhere. We’ll ask, they may have seen him.’

  Just beyond the turning was a little post-office, and a postman was cycling towards it from the Sutton road.

  Fleur pulled the car to a walk alongside.

  ‘Have you seen a gentleman in a blue coat and bowler hat making towards Sutton?’

  ‘No, Miss, ’aven’t passed a soul.’

  ‘Thank you. Shall I carry on for the Downs, Uncle Hilary?’

  Hilary consulted his watch.

  ‘If I remember, it’s a mile about to the top of the Down close to Duncton Beacon. We’ve come a mile and a half from the station; and he had, say, twenty-five minutes’ start, so by the time we get to the top we should have about caught him. From the top we shall see the road ahead and be able to make sure. If we don’t come on him, it’ll mean he’s taken to the Down – but which way?’

  Adrian said under his breath: ‘Homewards.’

  ‘To the East?’ said Hilary. ‘On then, Fleur, not too fast.’

  Fleur headed the car up the Downs road.

  ‘Feel in my coat, you’ll find three apples,’ she said, ‘I caught them up.’

  ‘What a head!’ said Hilary. ‘But you’ll want them yourself.’

  ‘No. I’m slimming. You can leave me one.’

  The brothers, munching each an apple, kept their eyes fixed on the woods on either side of the car.

  ‘Too thick,’ said Hilary; ‘he’ll be carrying on to the open. If you sight him, Fleur, stop dead.’

  But they did not sight him, and, mounting slower and slower, reached the top. To their right was the round beech tree clump of Duncton, to the left the open Down; no figure was on the road in front.

  ‘Not ahead,’ said Hilary. ‘We’ve got to decide, old man.’

  ‘Take my advice, and let me drive you home, Uncle Hilary.’

  ‘Shall we, Adrian?’

  Adrian shook his head.

  ‘I shall go on.’

  ‘All right, I’m with you.’

  ‘Look!’ said Fleur suddenly, and pointed.

  Some fifty yards in, along a rough track leaving the road to the left, lay a dark object.

  ‘It’s a coat, I think.’

  Adrian jumped out and ran towards it. He returned with a blue overcoat over his arm.

  ‘No doubt now,’ he said. ‘Either he was sitting there and left it by mistake, or he tired of carrying it. It’s a bad sign, whichever it was. Come along, Hilary! ’

  He dropped the coat in the car.

  ‘What orders for me, Uncle Hilary?’

  ‘You’ve been a brick, my dear. Would you be still more of a brick and wait here another hour? If we’re not back by then, go down and keep close along under the Downs slowly by way of Sutton Bignor and West Burton, then if there’s no sign of us anywhere along that way, take the main road through Pulborough back to London. If you’ve any money to spare, you might lend us some.’

  Fleur took out her bag.

  ‘Three pounds. Shall I give you two?’

  ‘Gratefully received,’ said Hilary. ‘Adrian and I never have any money. We’re the poorest family in England, I do believe. Good-bye, my dear, and thank you! Now, old man!’

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  WAVING their hands to where Fleur stood by her car with the remaining apple raised to her lips, the two brothers took the track on to the Down.

  ‘You lead,’ said Hilary; ‘you’ve got the best eyes, and your clothes are less conspicuous. If you sight him, we’ll consult.’

  They came almost at once on a long stretch of high wire fence running across the Down.

  ‘It ends there to the left,’ said Adrian; ‘we’ll go round it above the woods; the lower we keep the better.’

  They kept round it on the hillside over grass rougher and more uneven, falling into a climber’s loping stride as if once more they were off on some long and difficult ascent. The doubt whether they would catch up with Ferse, what they could do if they did, and the knowledge that it might be a maniac with whom they had to deal, brought to both their faces a look that soldiers have, and sailors, and men climbing mountains, of out-staring what was before them.

  They had crossed an old and shallow chalk working and were mounting the few feet to the level on its far side, when Adrian dropped back and pulled Hilary down.

  ‘He’s there,’ he whispered; ‘about seventy yards ahead!’

  ‘See you?’

  ‘No. He looks wild. His hat’s gone, and he’s gesticulating. What shall we do?’

  ‘Put your head up through that bush.’

  Adrian knelt, watching. Ferse had ceased to gesticulate, he was standing with arms crossed and his bare head bent. His back was to Adrian, and, but for that still, square, wrapped-in attitude, there was nothing to judge from. He suddenly uncrossed his arms, shook his head from side to side and began to walk rapidly on. Adrian waited till he had disappeared among the bushes on the slope, and beckoned Hilary to follow.

  ‘We mustn’t let him get too far ahead,’ muttered Hilary, ‘or we shan’t know whether he’s taken to the wood.’

  ‘He’ll keep to the open, he wants air, poor devil. Look out!’ He pulled Hilary down again. The ground had suddenly begun to dip. It sloped right down to a grassy hollow, and halfway down the slope they could see Ferse plainly. He was walking slowly, clearly unconscious of pursuit. Every now and then his hands would go up to his bare head, as if to clear away something that entangled it.

  ‘God!’ murmured Adrian: ‘I hate to see him.’

  Hilary nodded.

  They lay watching. Part of the weald was visible, rich with colour on that sunny autumn day. The grass, after heavy morning dew, was scented still; the sky of the dim spiritual blue that runs almost to white above the chalky downs. And the day was silent well-nigh to breathlessness. The brothers waited without speaking.

  Ferse had reached the level at the bottom; they could see him dejectedly moving across a rough field towards a spinney. A pheasant rose just in front of him; they saw him start, as if wakened from a dream, and stand watching its rising flight.

  ‘I expect he knows every foot round here,’ said Adrian: ‘he was a keen sportsman.’ And just then Ferse threw up his hands as if they held a gun. There was something oddly reassuring in that action.

  ‘Now,’ said Hilary, as Ferse disappeared in the spinney, ‘run!’ They dashed down the hill, and hurried along over rough ground.

  ‘Suppose,’ gasped Adrian, ‘that he’s stopped in the spinney.’

  �
��Risk it! Gently now, till we can see the rise.’

  About a hundred yards beyond the spinney, Ferse was plodding slowly up the hill.

  ‘All right so far,’ murmured Hilary, ‘we must wait till that rise flattens out and we lose sight of him. This is a queer business, old boy, for you and me. And at the end of it, as Fleur said: What?’

  ‘We must know,’ said Adrian.

  ‘We’re just losing him now. Let’s give him five minutes. I’ll time it.’

  That five minutes seemed interminable. A jay squawked from the wooded hillside, a rabbit stole out and squatted in front of them; faint shiverings of air passed through the spinney.

  ‘Now!’ said Hilary. They rose, and breasted the grass rise at a good pace. ‘If he comes back on his tracks, here –’

  ‘The sooner it’s face to face the better,’ said Adrian, ‘but if he sees us following he’ll run, and we shall lose him.’

  ‘Go slow, old man. It’s beginning to flatten.’

  Cautiously they topped the rise. The Down now dipped a little to where a chalky track ran above a beech wood to their left. There was no sign of Ferse.

  ‘Either he’s gone into the wood or he’s through that next thicket, and on the rise again. We’d better hurry and make sure.’

  They ran along the track between deep banks, and were turning into the brush, when the sound of a voice not twenty yards ahead jerked them to a standstill. They dropped back behind the bank and lay breathless. Somewhere in the thicket Ferse was muttering to himself. They could hear no words, but the voice gave them both a miserable feeling.

  ‘Poor chap!’ whispered Hilary: ‘shall we go on, and try to comfort him?’

  ‘Listen!’

  There was the sound as of a branch cracking underfoot, a muttered oath, and then with appalling suddenness a huntsman’s scream. It had a quality that froze the blood. Adrian said:

  ‘Pretty ghastly! But he’s broken covert.’

  Cautiously they moved into the thicket; Ferse was running for the Down that rose from the end of it.

  ‘He didn’t see us, did he?’

  ‘No, or he’d be looking back. Wait till we lose sight of him again.’

  ‘This is poor work,’ said Hilary, suddenly, ‘but I agree with you it’s got to be done. That was a horrible sound! But we must know exactly what we’re going to do, old man.’