第63章

"We may suppose him thick and sturdy,standing for England as it was before the Industrial Era began.The second Jolyon Forsyte--your great-grandfather,Jolly;better known as Superior Dosset Forsyte--built houses,so the chronicle runs,begat ten children,and migrated to London town.It is known that he drank sherry.We may suppose him representing the England of Napoleon's wars,and general unrest.The eldest of his six sons was the third Jolyon,your grandfather,my dears--tea merchant and chairman of companies,one of the soundest Englishmen who ever lived--and to me the dearest."Jolyon's voice had lost its irony,and his son and daughter gazed at him solemnly,"He was just and tenacious,tender and young at heart.You remember him,and I remember him.Pass to the others!Your great-uncle James,that's young Val's grand-father,had a son called Soames--whereby hangs a tale of no love lost,and I don't think I'll tell it you.James and the other eight children of 'Superior Dosset,'of whom there are still five alive,may be said to have represented Victorian England,with its principles of trade and individualism at five per cent.and your money back--if you know what that means.At all events they've turned thirty thousand pounds into a cool million between them in the course of their long lives.They never did a wild thing--unless it was your great-uncle Swithin,who I believe was once swindled at thimble-rig,and was called 'Four-in-hand Forsyte'because he drove a pair.Their day is passing,and their type,not altogether for the advantage of the country.They were pedestrian,but they too were sound.I am the fourth Jolyon Forsyte--a poor holder of the name--""No,Dad,"said Jolly,and Holly squeezed his hand.

"Yes,"repeated Jolyon,"a poor specimen,representing,I'm afraid,nothing but the end of the century,unearned income,amateurism,and individual liberty--a different thing from individualism,Jolly.You are the fifth Jolyon Forsyte,old man,and you open the ball of the new century."As he spoke they turned in through the college gates,and Holly said:"It's fascinating,Dad."None of them quite knew what she meant.Jolly was grave.

The Rainbow,distinguished,as only an Oxford hostel can be,for lack of modernity,provided one small oak-panelled private sitting-room,in which Holly sat to receive,white-frocked,shy,and alone,when the only guest arrived.Rather as one would touch a moth,Val took her hand.And wouldn't she wear this 'measly flower'?It would look ripping in her hair.He removed a gardenia from his coat.

"Oh!No,thank you--I couldn't!"But she took it and pinned it at her neck,having suddenly remembered that word 'showy'!Val's buttonhole would give offence;and she so much wanted Jolly to like him.Did she realise that Val was at his best and quietest in her presence,and was that,perhaps,half the secret of his attraction for her?

"I never said anything about our ride,Val."

"Rather not!It's just between us."

By the uneasiness of his hands and the fidgeting of his feet he was giving her a sense of power very delicious;a soft feeling too--the wish to make him happy.

"Do tell me about Oxford.It must be ever so lovely."Val admitted that it was frightfully decent to do what you liked;the lectures were nothing;and there were some very good chaps.

"Only,"he added,"of course I wish I was in town,and could come down and see you."Holly moved one hand shyly on her knee,and her glance dropped.

"You haven't forgotten,"he said,suddenly gathering courage,"that we're going mad-rabbiting together?"Holly smiled.

"Oh!That was only make-believe.One can't do that sort of thing after one's grown up,you know.""Dash it!cousins can,"said Val."Next Long Vac.--it begins in June,you know,and goes on for ever--we'll watch our chance."But,though the thrill of conspiracy ran through her veins,Holly shook her head."It won't come off,"she murmured.

"Won't it!"said Val fervently;"who's going to stop it?Not your father or your brother."At this moment Jolyon and Jolly came in;and romance fled into Val's patent leather and Holly's white satin toes,where it itched and tingled during an evening not conspicuous for open-heartedness.

Sensitive to atmosphere,Jolyon soon felt the latent antagonism between the boys,and was puzzled by Holly;so he became un-consciously ironical,which is fatal to the expansiveness of youth.

A letter,handed to him after dinner,reduced him to a silence hardly broken till Jolly and Val rose to go.He went out with them,smoking his cigar,and walked with his son to the gates of Christ Church.Turning back,he took out the letter and read it again beneath a lamp.

"DEAR JOLYON,"Soames came again to-night--my thirty-seventh birthday.You were right,I mustn't stay here.I'm going to-morrow to the Piedmont Hotel,but I won't go abroad without seeing you.I feel lonely and down-hearted.

"Yours affectionately,"IRENE."

He folded the letter back into his pocket and walked on,astonished at the violence of his feelings.What had the fellow said or done?

He turned,into High Street,down the Turf,and on among a maze of spires and domes and long college fronts and walls,bright or darkshadowed in the strong moonlight.In this very heart of England's gentility it was difficult to realise that a lonely woman could be importuned or hunted,but what else could her letter mean?

Soames must have been pressing her to go back to him again,with public opinion and the Law on his side,too!'Eighteen-ninety-nine!,'he thought,gazing at the broken glass shining on the top of a villa garden wall;'but when it comes to property we're still a heathen people!I'll go up to-morrow morning.I dare say it'll be best for her to go abroad.'Yet the thought displeased him.

Why should Soames hunt her out of England!Besides,he might follow,and out there she would be still more helpless against the attentions of her own husband!'I must tread warily,'he thought;'that fellow could make himself very nasty.I didn't like his manner in the cab the other night.'His thoughts turned to his daughter June.Could she help?Once on a time Irene had been her greatest friend,and now she was a 'lame duck,'such as must appeal to June's nature!He determined to wire to his daughter to meet him at Paddington Station.Retracing his steps towards the Rainbow he questioned his own sensations.Would he be upsetting himself over every woman in like case?No!he would not.The candour of this conclusion discomfited him;and,finding that Holly had gone up to bed,he sought his own room.But he could not sleep,and sat for a long time at his window,huddled in an overcoat,watching the moonlight on the roofs.

Next door Holly too was awake,thinking of the lashes above and below Val's eyes,especially below;and of what she could do to make Jolly like him better.The scent of the gardenia was strong in her little bedroom,and pleasant to her.

And Val,leaning out of his first-floor window in B.N.C.,was gazing at a moonlit quadrangle without seeing it at all,seeing instead Holly,slim and white-frocked,as she sat beside the fire when he first went in.

But Jolly,in his bedroom narrow as a ghost,lay with a hand beneath his cheek and dreamed he was with Val in one boat,rowing a race against him,while his father was calling from the towpath:

'Two!Get your hands away there,bless you!'