“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.