The opened car travelled fast under a bright sun, and not until he was in the new cut, leading to Chiswick, did Soames have the idea which caused him to say: “Stop at that house, ‘The Poplars,’ where you took us the other day.”
It was not yet lunch time, and in all probability Fleur would still be “sitting”; so why not pick her up and take her straight away with him for the week-end? She had clothes down at “The Shelter.” It would save some hours of fresh air for her. The foreign woman, however, who opened the door, informed him that the lady had not been to “sit” today or yesterday.
“Oh!” said Soames. “How’s that?”
“Nobody did know, sir. She ‘ave not sent any message. Mr. Blade is very decomposed.”
Soames chewed his thoughts a moment.
“Is your mistress in?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Then ask her if she’ll see me, please. Mr. Soames Forsyte.”
“Will you in the meal room wait, sir.”
Soames waited uneasily in that very little room. Fleur had said she could not come with him because of her “sittings”; and she had not “sat.” Was she ill, then?
He was roused from disquiet contemplation of the poplar trees outside by the words:
“Oh! It’s you. I’m not sorry you came.”
The cordiality of this greeting increased his uneasiness, and stretching out his hand, he said:
“How are you, June? I called for Fleur. When did she come last?”
“Tuesday morning. I saw her late on Tuesday afternoon, too, in her car, outside—” Soames could see her eyes moving from side to side, and knew that she was about to say something unpleasant. It came. “She picked up Jon.”
Feeling as if he had received a punch in his wind, Soames exclaimed:
“What! Your young brother? What was he doing here?”
“‘Sitting,’ of course.”
“‘Sitting’? What business—!” and, checking the words, “had he to ‘sit,’” he stared at his cousin, who, flushing a deep pink, said:
“I told her she was not to see him here. I told Jon the same.”
“Then she’d done it before?”
“Yes, twice. She’s so spoiled, you see.”
“Ah!” The reality of the danger had disarmed him. Antagonism seemed to him, thus faced with a sort of ruin, too luxurious.
“Where is she?”
“On Tuesday morning she said she was going down to Dorking.”
“And she picked him up?” repeated Soames.
June nodded. “Yes, after his ‘sitting.’ His picture’s finished. If you think that I want them to—any more than you—”
“No one in their senses could want them to—” said Soames, coldly. “But why did you make him ‘sit,’ while she was coming here?”
June flushed a deeper pink.
“YOU don’t know how hard it is for real artists. I HAD to think of Harold. If I hadn’t got Jon before he began his farming—”
“Farming!” said Soames. “For all we know they may—” but again he checked his words. “I’ve been expecting something of this sort ever since I heard he was back. Well! I’d better get on to Dorking. D’you know where his mother is?”
“In Paris.”
Ah! But not this time would he have to beg that woman to let her son belong to his daughter? No! It would be to beg her to stop his belonging—if at all.
“Good-bye!” he said.
“Soames,” said June, suddenly, “don’t let Fleur—it’s she who—”
“I’ll hear nothing against her,” said Soames.
June pressed her clenched hands to her flat breast.
“I like you for that,” she said; “and I’m sorry if—”
“That’s all right,” muttered Soames.
“Good-bye!” said June. “Shake hands!”
Soames put his hand in one which gave it a convulsive squeeze, then dropped it like a cold potato.
“Down to Dorking,” he said to Riggs, on regaining his car. The memory of Fleur’s face that night at Nettlefold, so close to the young man’s, so full of what he had never seen on her face before, haunted him the length of Hammersmith Bridge. Ah! What a wilful creature! Suppose—suppose she had flung her cap over the windmill! Suppose the worst! Good God! What should—what COULD he do, then? The calculating tenacity of her passion for this young man—the way she had kept it from him, from everyone, or tried to! Something deadly about it, and something that almost touched him, rousing the memory of his own pursuit of that boy’s mother—memory of a passion that would not, could not let go; that had won its ends, and destroyed in winning. He had often thought she had no continuity, that, like all these “fizz-gig” young moderns, she was just fluttering without basic purpose or direction. And it was the irony of this moment that he perceived how she—when she knew what she wanted—had as much tenacity of will as himself and his generation.
It didn’t do, it seemed, to judge by appearances! Beneath the surface passions remained what they had been, and in the draughty corridors and spaces there was the old hot stillness when they woke and breathed…
That fellow was taking the Kingston road! Soon they would be passing Robin Hill. How all this part had changed since the day he went down with Bosinney to choose the site. Forty years—not more—but what a change! “Plus ca change—” Annette would say—“plus c’est la meme chose!” Love and hate—no end to that, anyway! The beat of life went on beneath the wheels and whirr of traffic and the jazzy music of the band. Fate on its drum, or just the human heart? God knew! God? Convenient word. What did one mean by it? He didn’t know, and never would! In the cathedral that morning he had thought—and then—that verger! There were the poplars, and the stable clock-tower, just visible, of the house he had built and never inhabited. If he could have foreseen a stream of cars like this passing day after day, not a quarter of a mile off, he would not have built it, and that tragedy might never—And yet—did it matter what you did?—some way, somehow life took you up and put you where it would. He leaned forward and touched his chauffeur’s back.
“Which way are you going?”
“Through Esher, sir, and off to the left.”
“Well,” said Soames, “it’s all the same to me.”
It was past lunch time, but he wasn’t hungry. He wouldn’t be hungry till he knew the worst. But that chap would be, he supposed.
“Better stop somewhere,” he said, “and have a snack, and a cigarette.”
“Yes, sir.”
He wasn’t long in stopping. Soames sat on in the car, gazing idly at the sign—“Red Lions, Angels and White Horses”—nothing killed them off. One of these days they’d try and bring in Prohibition, he shouldn’t wonder; but that cock wouldn’t fight in England—too extravagant! Treating people like children wasn’t the way to make them grow up; as if they weren’t childish enough as it was. Look at this coal strike, that went on and on—perfectly childish, hurting everybody and doing good to none! Weak-minded! To reflect on the weak-mindedness of his fellow-citizens was restful to Soames, faced with a future that might prove disastrous. For, in view of her infatuation, what could taking that young man about in her car mean—except disaster? What a time Riggs was! He got out, and walked up and down. Not that there was anything he could do—he supposed—when he did get there. No matter how much you loved a person, how anxious you were about her, you had no power—perhaps less power in proportion to your love. But he must speak his mind at last, if he had the chance. Couldn’t let her go over the edge without putting out a hand! The sun struck on his face, and he lifted it a little blindly, as if grateful for the warmth. All humbug about the world coming to an end, of course, but he’d be glad enough for it to come before he was brought down in sorrow to the grave. He saw with hideous clearness how complete disaster must be. If Fleur ran off, there’d be nothing left to him that he really cared about, for the Monts would take Kit. He’d be stranded among his pictures and his cows, without heart for either, till he died. ‘I won’t have it,’ he thought. ‘If it hasn’t happened, I won’t have it.’ Yes! But how prevent it? And with the futility of his own resolution staring him in the face, he went back to the car. There was the fellow, at last, smoking his cigarette.