He was telling them now how he had “pipped the pro—a charmin’ fellow, playin’ a very good game,” at the last hole this morning; and how he had pulled down to Caversham since lunch, and trying to incite Prosper Profond to play him a set of tennis after tea—do him good—“keep him fit.”
“But what’s the use of keepin’ fit?” said Monsieur Profond.
“Yes, sir,” murmured Michael Mont, “what do you keep fit for?”
“Jack,” cried Imogen, enchanted, “what do you keep fit for?”
Jack Cardigan stared with all his health. The questions were like the buzz of a mosquito, and he put up his hand to wipe them away. During the War, of course, he had kept fit to kill Germans; now that it was over he either did not know, or shrank in delicacy from explanation of his moving principle.
“But he’s right,” said Monsieur Profond unexpectedly, “there’s nothin’ left but keepin’ fit.”
The saying, too deep for Sunday afternoon, would have passed unanswered, but for the mercurial nature of young Mont.
“Good!” he cried. “That’s the great discovery of the war. We all thought we were progressing—now we know we’re only changing.”
“For the worse,” said Monsieur Profond genially.
“How you are cheerful, Prosper!” murmured Annette.
“You come and play tennis!” said Jack Cardigan; “you’ve got the hump. We’ll soon take that down. D’you play, Mr. Mont?”
“I hit the ball about, sir.”
At this juncture Soames rose, ruffled in that deep instinct of preparation for the future which guided his existence.
“When Fleur comes—” he heard Jack Cardigan say.
Ah! and why didn’t she come? He passed through drawing-room, hall, and porch out onto the drive, and stood there listening for the car. All was still and Sunday-fied; the lilacs in full flower scented the air. There were white clouds, like the feathers of ducks gilded by the sunlight. Memory of the day when Fleur was born, and he had waited in such agony with her life and her mother’s balanced in his hands, came to him sharply. He had saved her then, to be the flower of his life. And now! Was she going to give him trouble—pain—give him trouble? He did not like the look of things! A blackbird broke in on his reverie with an evening song—a great big fellow up in that acacia-tree. Soames had taken quite an interest in his birds of late years; he and Fleur would walk round and watch them; her eyes were sharp as needles, and she knew every nest. He saw her dog, a retriever, lying on the drive in a patch of sunlight, and called to him, “Hallo, old fellow—waiting for her too!” The dog came slowly with a grudging tail, and Soames mechanically laid a pat on his head. The dog, the bird, the lilac all were part of Fleur for him; no more, no less. ‘Too fond of her!’ he thought, ‘too fond!’ He was like a man uninsured, with his ships at sea. Uninsured again—as in that other time, so long ago, when he would wander dumb and jealous in the wilderness of London, longing for that woman—his first wife—he mother of this infernal boy. Ah! There was the car at last! It drew up, it had luggage, but no Fleur.
“Miss Fleur is walking up, sir, by the towing-path”
Walking all those miles? Soames stared. The man’s face had the beginning of a smile on it. What was he grinning at? And very quickly he turned, saying: “All right, Sims!” and went into the house. He mounted to the picture-gallery once more. He had from there a view of the river bank, and stood with his eyes fixed on it, oblivious of the fact that it would be an hour at least before her figure showed there. Walking up! And that fellow’s grin! The boy—! He turned abruptly from the window. He couldn’t spy on her. If she wanted to keep things from him—she must; he could not spy on her. His heart felt empty; and bitterness mounted from it into his very mouth. The staccato shouts of Jack Cardigan pursuing the ball, the laugh of young Mont rose in the stillness and came in. He hoped they were making that chap Profond run. And the girl in “La Vendimia” stood with her arm akimbo and her dreamy eyes looking past him. ‘I’ve done all I could for you,’ he thought, ‘since you were no higher than my knee. You aren’t going to—to—hurt me, are you?’
But the Goya copy answered not, brilliant in colour just beginning to tone down. ‘There’s no real life in it,’ thought Soames. ‘Why doesn’t she come?’
Chapter X.
TRIO
Among those four Forsytes of the third, and, as one might say, fourth generation, at Wansdon under the Downs, a week-end prolonged unto the ninth day had stretched the crossing threads of tenacity almost to snapping-point. Never had Fleur been so “FINE,” Holly so watchful, Val so stable-secretive, Jon so silent and disturbed. What he learned of farming in that week might have been balanced on the point of a pen-knife and puffed off. He, whose nature was essentially averse to intrigue, and whose adoration of Fleur disposed him to think that any need for concealing it was “skittles,” chafed and fretted, yet obeyed, taking what relief he could in the few moments when they were alone. On Thursday, while they were standing in the bay window of the drawing-room, dressed for dinner, she said to him:
“Jon, I’m going home on Sunday by the 3.40 from Paddington; if you were to go home on SATURDAY you could come up on Sunday and take me down, and just get back here by the last train, after. You WERE going home anyway, weren’t you?”
Jon nodded.
“Anything to be with you,” he said; “only why need I pretend—”
Fleur slipped her little finger into his palm:
“You have no instinct, Jon; you MUST leave things to me. It’s serious about our people. We’ve simply got to be secret at present, if we want to be together.” The door was opened, and she added loudly: “You ARE a duffer, Jon.”
Something turned over within Jon; he could not bear this subterfuge about a feeling so natural, so overwhelming, and so sweet.
On Friday night about eleven he had packed his bag, and was leaning out of his window, half miserable and half lost in a dream of Paddington station, when he heard a tiny sound, as of a finger-nail tapping on his door. He rushed to it and listened. Again the sound. It WAS a nail. He opened. Oh! What a lovely thing came in!
“I wanted to show you my fancy dress,” it said, and struck an attitude at the foot of his bed. Jon drew a long breath and leaned against the door. The apparition wore white muslin on its head, a fichu round its bare neck over a wine-coloured dress, fulled out below its slender waist. It held one arm akimbo, and the other raised right-angled holding a fan which touched its head.
“This ought to be a basket of grapes,” it whispered, “but I haven’t got it here. It’s my Goya dress. And this is the attitude in the picture. Do you like it?”
“It’s a dream.”
The apparition pirouetted. “Touch it, and see.”
Jon knelt down and took the skirt reverently.
“Grape colour,” came the whisper, “all grapes—La Vendimia—the vintage.”