 Part 3, Chapter 6 of To Let. This is a LibriVox recording, or LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Ava Harnick, Pontevedra, Florida. The foresight saga, Volume 3, To Let by John Goldsworthy. Part 3, Chapter 6, Desperate. The weeks which followed the death of his father were sad and empty to the only Jolion foresight left. The necessary forms and ceremonies, the reading of the will, valuation of the estate, distribution of the legacies were enacted over the head as it were of one not yet of age. Jolion was cremated. By his special wish no one attended that ceremony or wore black for him. The succession of his property, controlled to some extent by old Jolion's will, left his widow in possession of Robin Hill with £2,500 a year for life. Apart from this, the two wills worked together in some complicated way to ensure that each of Jolion's three children should have an equal share in their grandfather's and father's property in the future as in the present. Save only that John by virtue of his sex would have control of his capital when he was 21, while Jolion and Holly would only have the spirit of theirs in order that their children might have the body after them. If they had no children, it would all come to John if he outlived them. And since June was 50 and Holly nearly 40, it was considered in Lincoln's infields that but for the cruelty of income tax, young John would be as warm a man as his grandfather when he died. All this was nothing to John and little enough to his mother. It was June who did everything needful for one who had left his affairs in perfect order. When she had gone and those two were alone again in the great house, alone with death drawing them together and love driving them apart, John passed very painful days secretly disgusted and disappointed with himself. His mother would look at him with such a patient sadness which yet had in it an instinctive pride as if she were reserving her defense. If she smiled, he was angry that his answering smile should be so grudging and unnatural. He did not judge or condemn her. That was all too remote. Indeed the idea of doing so had never come to him. No, he was grudging and unnatural because he could not have what he wanted because of her. There was one alleviation much to do in connection with his father's career which could not be safely entrusted to June though she had offered to undertake it. Both John and his mother had felt that if she took his portfolios, unexhibited drawings and unfinished method away with her, the work would encounter such icy blasts from Paul Post and other frequenters of her studio that it would soon be frozen out even of her warm heart. On its old-fashioned plain and of its kind the work was good and they could not bear the thought of its objection to ridicule. A one-man exhibition of his work was the least testimony they could pay to one they had loved and on preparation for this they spent many hours together. John came to have a curiously increased respect for his father. The quiet tenacity with which he had converted a mediocre talent into something really individual was disclosed by these researchers. There was a great muscle work with a rare continuity of growth in depth and reach of vision. Nothing certainly went very deep or reached very high but such as the work was, it was thorough, conscientious and complete. And remembering his father's utter absence of side or self-assertion, the shaping humility with which he had always spoken of his own efforts ever calling himself an amateur, John could not have feeling that he had never really known his father. To take himself seriously, yet never that he did so, seemed to have been his ruling principal. There was something in this which appealed to the boy and made him heartily endorse his mother's comment. He had true refinement. He could not help thinking of others whatever he did. And when he took a resolution which went counter, he did it with the minimum of defiance, not like the age, is it? Twice in his life he had to go against everything and yet it never made him bitter. John saw tears running down her face which she at once turned away from him. She was so quiet about her loss that sometimes he had thought she did not feel it much. Now as he looked at her, he felt how far he felt short of the reserved power and dignity in both his father and his mother. And stealing up to her, he put his arm round her waist. She kissed him swiftly but with a sort of passion and went out of the room. The studio where they had been sorting and labelling had once been Halle's schoolroom, devoted to her silkworms, dried lavender, music and other forms of instruction. Now at the end of July, despite its northern and eastern aspects, a warm and slumberous air came in between the long-faded lilac linen curtains. To redeem a little the departed glory, as of a field that is golden and gone, clinging to a room which its master has left, Irina had placed on the paint-stained table a bowl of red roses. This and Jolien's favorite cat, who still clung to the deserted habitat, were the pleasant spots in the disherved, sad workroom. John, at the north window sniffing air, mysteriously scented with warm strawberries, heard a car drive up. The lawyers again about some nonsense. Why did that scent so make one ache? And where did it come from? There were no strawberry beds on this side of the house. Instinctively he took a crumbled sheet of paper from his pocket and wrote down some broken words. A warmth began spreading in his chest. He rubbed the palms of his hands together. Presently he had jotted this. If I could make a little song, a little song to soothe my heart, I would make it all of little things. The pleasure of water, rub of wings. The puffing of, of then this crown. The hiss of raindrop spilling down. The purr of cat, the thrill of bird. And every whispering I have heard. From really wind in leaves and grass and all the distant drones that pass. A song as tender and as light as flower or butterfly in flight. And when I saw it opening, I would let it fly and sing. He was still muttering it over to himself at the window, when he heard his name called and turning round saw flower. At that amazing apparition he made at first no movement and no sound while her clear vivid glance ravished his heart. Then he went forward to the table saying, how nice of you to come. And saw her flinch as if he had thrown something at her. I asked for you, she said, and they showed me up here. But I can go away again. John clutched the paint stain table. Her face and figure in its freely frock photographed itself with such startling vividness upon his eyes that if she had sunk through the floor he must still have seen her. I know I told you a lie John, but I told it out of love. Yes, oh yes, that is nothing. I didn't answer your letter. What was the use? There wasn't anything to answer. I wanted to see you instead. She held out both her hands and John grasped them across the table. He tried to say something, but all his attention was given to trying not to hurt her hands. His own felt so hard and hers so soft. She said almost defiantly, that old story, was it so very dreadful? Yes, in his voice too there was a note of defiance. She dragged her hands away. I didn't think in these days boys were tied to their mother's apron strings. John's chin went up as if he had been stuck. Oh, I didn't mean it John, what a horrible thing to say. Swiftly she came close to him. John dear, I didn't mean it. All right. She had put her two hands on his shoulder and her forehead down on them. The brim of her hat touched his neck and he felt it quivering. But in a sort of paralysis he made no response. She let go of his shoulder and drew away. Well, I will go if you don't want me, but I never thought you would have given me up. I haven't cried John coming suddenly to life. I can't. I will try again. Her eyes gleamed. She swayed at him. John, I love you. Don't give me up. If you do, I don't know what. I feel so desperate. What does it matter all that past compared with this? She clung to him. He kissed her eyes, her cheeks, her lips. But while he kissed her, he saw the sheets of that letter falling down on the floor of his bedroom, his father's white dead face, his mother kneeling before it. Fleur whispered, Make her promise. Oh, John, try. Seemed childish in his ear. He felt curiously old. I promise, he muttered, only you don't understand. She wants to spoil our lives, just because. Yes, or what? Again the challenge in his voice, and she did not answer. Her arms tightened around him, and he returned her kisses. But even while he yielded, the poison worked in him, the poison of the letter. Fleur did not know. She did not understand. She misjudged his mother. She came from the enemy's camp. So lovely, and he loved her soul. Yet, even in her embrace, he could not help the memory of Holly's words. I think she has a having nature. And his mother's, my darling boy, don't think of me. Think of yourself. When she was gone like a passionate dream, leaving her image on his eyes, her kisses on his lips, such an ache in his heart. John leaned in the window, listening to the car, burying her away. Still the scent as a warm strawberry's, still the little summer sounds that should make his song, still all the promise of use and happiness in sighing, floating, fluttering July. And his heart torn, yearning strong in him, hope high in him, yet with its eyes cast down as if ashamed. The miserable task before him. If Fleur was desperate, so was he, watching the poplars swaying, the white clouds passing, the sunlight on the grass. He waited till evening, till after they're almost silent dinner, till his mother had played to him and still he waited, feeling that she knew what he was waiting to say. She kissed him and went upstairs and still he lingered, watching the moonlight and the moth and that unreality of colouring which steals along and stains a summer night. And he would have given anything to be back again in the past, barely three months back, or a way forward, years in the future. The present, with this dark cruelty of a decision, one way or the other, seemed impossible. He realized now so much more keenly what his mother felt than he had at first, as if the story in that letter had been a poisonous germ producing a kind of fever or partisanship, so that he really felt there were two camps, his mother's and his, her's and her father's. It might be a dead sink, that old tragic ownership and enmity, but dead sinks were poisonous till time had cleaned them away. Even his love felt tainted, less illusioned, more of the earth and with a treacherous lurking doubt less fleur like her father might want to own. Not articulate, just a stealing haunt, horribly unworthy, which crept in and about the ardor of his memories, touched with its tarnishing breath the vividness and grace of that charmed face and figure. A doubt, not real enough to convince him of its presence, just real enough to deflower a perfect face. And perfect face to John, not yet 20 was essential. He still had uses eagerness to give with both hands to take with neither, to give lovingly to one who had his own impulsive generosity. Surely she had. He got up from the window seat and roamed in the big grey ghostly room whose walls were hung with silver canvas. This house his father said in the desperate letter had been built for his mother to live in with Fleur's father. He put out his hand in the half dark as if to grasp the shadowy hand of the dead. He clenched, trying to feel the sin vanished fingers of his father to squeeze them and reassure him that he was on his father's side. Tears present within him made his eyes feel dry and hot. He went back to the window. It was warmer, not so eerie, more comforting outside where the moon hung golden three days off full. The freedom of the night was comforting. If only Fleur and he had met on some desert island without a past and nature for their house. John had still his high regard for desert islands where breadfruit grew and the water was blue above the coral. The night was deep, was free. There was enticement in it. A lure, a promise, a refuge from entanglement and love. Milksaw died to his mothers. His cheeks burned. He shut the window, drew curtains over it, switched off the lighted scones and went upstairs. The door of his room was open. The light turned up. His mother, still in her evening gown was standing at the window. She turned and said, Sit down, John. Let us talk. She sat down on the window seat, John on his bed. She had her profile turned to him and the beauty and grace of her figure, the delicate line of the brow, the nose, the neck, the strange and as it were remote refinement of her, moved him. His mother never belonged to her surroundings. She came into them from somewhere, as it were. What was she going to say to him who had in his heart such things to say to her? I know Fleur came today. I am not surprised. It was as though she had added she's her father's daughter and John's heart hardened. Irene went on quietly. I have father's letter. I picked it up that night and kept it. Would you like it back, dear? John shook his head. I had read it, of course, before he gave it to you. It didn't quite do justice to my criminality. Mother burst from John's lips. He put it very sweetly. But I know that in marrying Fleur's father without love, I did a dreadful thing. An unhappy marriage, John, can play such havoc with other lives besides one's own. You are fearfully young, my darling and fearfully loving. Do you think you can possibly be happy with this girl? Staring at her dark eyes, darker now from pain, John answered. Yes, oh yes, if you could be. Irene smiled. Admirational beauty and longing for possession are not love. If yours were another case like mine, John, where the deepest things are stifled, the flesh joined and the spirit at war. Why should it, mother? You think she must be like her father, but she's not. I have seen him. Again the smile came on Irene's lips and in John's something wavered. There was such irony and experience in that smile. You are a giver, John. She is a taker. That unversed doubt, that haunting uncertainty again. He said with vehemence, she isn't, she isn't. It is only because I can't bear to make you unhappy, mother. Now that father, he trusts his fists against his forehead. Irene got up. I told you that night there not to mind me. I meant it. Think of yourself and your own happiness. I can stand what is left. I have brought it on myself. Again the word mother burst from John's lips. She came over to him and put her hands over his. Do you feel your head, darling? John shook it. What he felt was in his chest, a sort of tearing asunder of the tissue there by the two loves. I shall always love you the same, John. Whatever you do, you won't lose anything. She smoothed his head gently and walked away. He heard the door shut and rolling over on the bed lay stifling his breath with an awful held-up feeling within him. End of Part 3, Chapter 6 Desperate, Recording by Ava Harnick, Bontevedra, Florida. Part 3, Chapter 7 of To Let. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Simon Evers. The Foresight Saga 3 To Let. By John Gouldsworthy. Part 3, Chapter 7. Embassy. Inquiring for her at tea-time, Soames learned that Fleur had been out in the car since two. Three hours! Where had she gone? Up to London without a word to him. He had never become quite reconciled with cars. He had embraced them in principle, like the born empiricist or foresight that he was. Adopting each symptom of progress as it came along with, well, we couldn't do without them now. But in fact, he found them tearing great smelly things. Obliged by a net to have one, a roll-hard with pearl-grey cushions, electric light, little mirrors, trays for the ashes of cigarettes, flower vases, all smelling of petrol and Stephanotis, he regarded it much as he'd used to regard his brother-in-law, Montague D'Arty. The thing typified all that was fast, insecure, and subcutaneously oily in modern life. As modern life became faster, looser, younger, Soames was becoming older, slower, tighter, more and more in thought and language like his father James before him. He was almost aware of it in himself. Pace and progress pleased him less and less. There was an ostentation, too, about a car which he considered provocative in the prevailing mood of labour. On one occasion, that fellow, Sims, had driven over the only vested interest of a working man. Soames had not forgotten the behaviour of its master. When not many people would have stopped to put up with it, he'd been sorry for the dog and quite prepared to take its part against the car if that ruffian hadn't been so outrageous. With four hours fast becoming five and still no fleur, all the old car-wise feelings he had experienced in person and by proxy bawled within him and sinking sensations troubled the pit of his stomach. At seven he telephoned to Winifred by trunk-call. No, Fleur had not been to Green Street. Then where was she? Visions of his beloved daughter rolled up in her pretty frills all blood and dust stained in some hideous catastrophe began to haunt him. He went to her room and spied among her things. She'd taken nothing, no dressing-case, no jewellery. And this, a relief in one sense, increased his fears of an accident. Terrible to be helpless when his loved one was missing, especially when he couldn't bear fuss or publicity of any kind. What should he do if she were not back by nightfall? At a quarter to eight he heard the car. A great weight lifted from off his heart. He hurried down. She was getting out pale and tired looking, but nothing wrong. He met her in the hall. You've frightened me. Where have you been? To Robin Hill. I'm sorry, dear. I had to go. I'll tell you afterward. And with a flying kiss she ran upstairs. Soames waited in the drawing-room. To Robin Hill? What did that portend? It was not a subject that they could discuss at dinner, consecrated to the susceptibilities of the buckler. The agony of nerves Soames had been through. The relief he felt at her safety softened his power to condemn what she had done or resist what she was going to do. He waited in a relaxed stupor for her revelation. Life was a queer business. There he was at sixty-five and no more in command of things than if he had not spent forty years in building up security. Always something one couldn't get on terms with. In the pocket of his dinner-jacket was a letter from Annette. She was coming back in a fortnight. He knew nothing of what she had been doing out there. And he was glad that he did not. Her absence had been a relief. Out of sight was out of mind. And now she was coming back. Another worry. And the boldly old crone was gone. Dumatris had got it all because that anonymous letter put it out of his thoughts. He furtively remarked the strained look on his daughter's face, as if she too were gazing at a picture that she couldn't buy. He almost wished the war back. Wires didn't seem, then, quite so worrying. From the caress in her voice, the look on her face, he became certain that she wanted something from him, uncertain whether it would be wise of him to give it to her. He pushed his savoury away, uneaten, and even joined her in a cigarette. After dinner she set the electric piano player going. And he augured the worst when she sat down on a cushioned footstool at his knee, and put her hand on his. Darling, be nice to me. I had to see John. He wrote to me. He's going to try what he can do with his mother. But I've been thinking, it's really in your hands, Father. If you persuade her that it doesn't mean renewing the past in any way, that I shall stay yours and John will stay hers, that you need never see him or her, that she need never see you or me, only you could persuade her, dear, because only you could promise. I can't promise for other people. Surely it wouldn't be too awkward for you to see her, just this once, now that John's father is dead? Too awkward, same as repeated, the whole thing's preposterous. You know, said Fleur, without looking up. You wouldn't mind seeing her, really. Same as was silent. The words expressed a truth too deep for him to admit. She slipped her fingers between his own, hot, slim, eager. They clung there. This child of his would corkscrew her way into a brick wall. What am I to do if you won't, Father? She said very softly. I'll do anything for your happiness, said Soames. But this isn't for your happiness. Oh, it is, it is. It'll only stir things up," he said grimly. But they are stirred up. The thing is to quiet them, to make her feel that this is just our lives and has nothing to do with yours or hers. You can do it, Father. I know you can. You know a great deal, then, was Soames' plum answer. If you will, John and I will wait a year, two years, if you like. It seems to me, murmured Soames, that you care nothing about what I feel. Fleur pressed his hand against her cheek. I do, darling, but you wouldn't like me to be awfully miserable. How she weedled to get her ends. And trying with all his might to think she really cared for him, he was not sure, not sure. All she cared for was this boy. Why should he help her to get this boy who was killing her affection for himself? Why should he? By the laws of the foresight's it was foolish. There was nothing to be had out of it, nothing. To give her to that boy, to pass her into the enemy's camp under the influence of the woman who had injured him so deeply, slowly, inevitably, he would lose this flower of his life, and suddenly he was conscious that his hand was wet. His heart gave a little painful jump. He couldn't bear to her to cry. He put his other hand quickly over hers, and once he had dropped on that, too, he couldn't go on like this. Well, well, he said, I'll think it over and do what I can. Come, come! If she must have it for her happiness, she must. He couldn't refuse to help her. Unless she should begin to thank him, he got out of his chair and went up to the piano player, making that noise. It ran down as he reached it with a faint buzz. That musical box of his nursery days. The harmonious blacksmith, glorious port. The thing had always made him miserable when his mother set it going on Sunday afternoons. Here it was again the same thing only larger, more expensive, and now it played the wild, wild women and the policemen's holiday. And he was no longer in black velvet with a sky-blue collar. Performs right, he thought. There's nothing in it. We're all progressing to the grave. And with that surprising mental comment, he walked out. He did not see Fleur again that night. But at breakfast her eyes followed him about with an appeal he could not escape. Not that he intended to try. Now he made up his mind to the nerve-wracking business. He would go to Robin Hill, to that house of memories. Pleasant memory, the last, of going down to keep that boy's father an irony apart by threatening divorce. He had often thought since that it had clinched their union. And now he was going to clinch the union of that boy with his girl. I don't know what I've done, he thought, to have such things thrust on me. He went up by train and down by train. And from the station, walked by the long rising lane, still very much as he remembered it over thirty years ago. Funny, so near London. Someone evidently was wholly onto the land there. This speculation soothed him, moving between the high hedges slowly, so as not to get overheated, though the day was chill enough. After all was said and done there was something real about land. It didn't shift. Land. And good pictures. The values might fluctuate a bit, but on the whole they were always going up. Worth wholly onto. In a world where there was such a lot of unreality, cheap building, changing fashions, such a here to-day and gone to-morrow spirit. The French were right, perhaps, with their peasant proprietorship. Though he had no opinion of the French. One's bit of land, something solid in it. He had heard peasant proprietors described as a pig-headed lot, had heard young Montt call his father a pig-headed morning-poster. Disrespectful young devil. Well, there were worse things than being pig-headed or reading the morning-post. There was profaned and all his tribe, and all these labour-chaps and loudmouth politicians and wild, wild women. A lot of worse things. And suddenly same's became conscious of feeling weak and hot and shaky. Sheer nerves at the meeting before him. As Aunt Julie might have said, quoting Superior Dosset, his nerves were in a proper fatigue. He could see the house now among its trees, the house he had watched being built, intending it for himself, and this woman, who by such strange fate have lived in it with another after all. He began to think of tumetrious, local loans, and other forms of investment. He could not afford to meet her with his nerves all shaking. He, who represented the day of judgment for her on earth as it was in heaven, he, legal ownership personified, meeting lawless beauty incarnate. His dignity demanded impassivity during this embassy designed to link their offspring. Who, if she had behaved herself, would have been brother and sister. That wretched tune, the wild, wild women, kept running in his head perversely, for tunes did not run there as a rule. Passing the poplars in front of the house, he thought, ah, they've grown. I have them planted. A maid answered his ring. Would you say, Mr. Forsight, on a very special matter? If she realised who he was, quite probably she would not see him. By George, he thought, hardening as the tug came, it's a topsy-turvy affair. The maid came back. Would the gentleman state his business, please? Said concerns, Mr. John, said Soames. And once more he was alone in that hall, with the pool of grey-white marble designed by her first lover. Ah, she'd been a bad lot, had loved two men, and not himself. He must remember that when he came face to face with her once more. And suddenly he saw her in the opening chink between the long, heavy purple curtains, swaying as if in hesitation. The old perfect poise and line, the old startled dark-eyed gravity, the old calm defensive voice. Will you come in, please? He passed through that opening. As in the picture gallery and the confectioner's shop, she seemed to him still beautiful. And this was the first time, the very first, since he married her seven and thirty years ago, that he was speaking to her without the legal right to call her his. She was not wearing black, one of that fellow's radical notions, he supposed. I apologize for coming, he said, lumbly, but this business must be settled one way or the other. Won't you sit down? No, thank you. Anger at his false position, patience of serenity between them, mastered him, and words came tumbling out. It's an infernal mischance, I've done my best to discourage it. I consider my daughter crazy, but I've got into the habit of indulging her. That's why I'm here. I suppose you're fond of your son? Devotedly. Well, it rests with him. He had a sense of being met and baffled. Always, always she had baffled him, even in those old first married days. It's a mad notion, he said. It is. If you'd only—well, there might have been— he did not finish that sentence, brother and sister, and all this saved. But he saw her shudder as if he had, and stung by the sight he crossed over to the window. Out there the trees had not grown. They couldn't. They were so old. So far as I'm concerned, he said, you may make your mind easy. I desire to see neither you nor your son if this marriage comes about. Young people in these days are unaccountable. But I can't bear to see my daughter unhappy. What am I to say to her when I go back? Please say to her, as I said to you, that it rests with John. You don't oppose it? With all my heart, not with my lips. Soams stood, biting his finger. I remember an evening— he said suddenly, and was silent. What was there? What was there in this woman that would not fit into the four corners of his hate or condemnation? Where is he, your son? Up in his father's studio, I think. Perhaps you'd have him down. He watched her ring the bell. Perhaps the maid come in. Please tell Mr. John that I want him. If it rests with him, said Soams hurriedly, when the maid was gone, I suppose I may take it for granted that this unnatural marriage will take place. In that case, there will be formalities. Whom do I deal with? Herrings? Irene nodded. You don't propose to live with them? Irene shook her head. What happens to this house? It will be as John wishes. This house, said Soams suddenly, I had hopes when I began it. If they live in it, their children, they say they're such a thing as Nemesis. Do you believe in it? Yes. Oh, you do. He had come back from the window, but standing close to her, who in the curve of her grand piano was, as it were, in bade. I'm not likely to see you again, he said slowly. Will you shake hands? His lip quivered. The words came out jerkily. And let the past die. He held out his hand. Her pale face grew paler. Her eyes so dark rested immovably on his. Her hands remained clasped in front of her. He heard a sound, and turned. That boy was standing in the opening of the curtains. Very queer he looked, hardly recognisable as the young fellow he'd seen in the gallery off Cork Street. Very queer, much older, no youth in the face at all, haggard, rigid, his hair ruffled, his eyes deep in his head. Soams made an effort, and said with a lift of his lip not quite a smile, nor quite a sneer. Well, young man, I'm here for my daughter. It rests with you, it seems, this matter. Your mother leaves it in your hands. The boy continued staring at his mother's face, and made no answer. For my daughter said, I've brought myself to come, said Soams. What am I to say to her when I go back? Still looking at his mother. The boy said, quietly, Tell Fleur that it's no good, please. I must do as my father wished before he died. John! It's all right, mother, in a kind of stupid faction, Soams looked from one to the other. Then, taking up hat and umbrella, which he had put down on a chair, he walked towards the curtains. The boy stood aside for him to go by. He passed through and heard the great of the rings as the curtains were drawn behind him. The sound liberated something in his chest. So that's that, he thought, and passed out of the front door. End of Part 3, Chapter 7. Recording by Simon Evers. Part 3, Chapter 8 of To Let. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Simon Evers. The foresight saga 3, To Let, by John Goresworthy. Part 3, Chapter 8. The Dark Tune. As Soams walked away from the house at Robin Hill, the sun broke through the grey of that chill afternoon in smoky radiance. So absorbed in landscape painting that he seldom looked seriously for effects of nature out of doors, he was struck by that moody effulgence. It mourned with a triumph suited to his own feeling. Victory and defeat. His embassy had come to naught, but he was rid of those people had regained his daughter at the expense of her happiness. What would Fleur say to him? Would she believe he had done his best? And under that sunlight faring on the elms, hazels, hollies of the lane, and those unexploited fields, Soams felt dread. She would be terribly upset. He must appeal to her pride. That boy had given her up, declared part and lot with the woman who so long ago had given her father up. Soams clenched his hands. Given him up? And why? What had been wrong with him? And once more he felt the malaise of one who contemplates himself as seen by another, like a dog who chances on his reflection in a mirror and is intrigued and anxious at the unseasable thing. Not in a hurry to get home. He dined in town at the connoisseurs. While eating a pear it suddenly occurred to him that if he had not gone down to Robin Hill the boy might not have so decided. He remembered the expression on his face while his mother was refusing the hand he had held out. A strange and awkward thought. Had Fleur cooked her own goose by trying to make too sure? He reached home at half-past nine. While the car was passing in at one drive-gate he heard the grinding sputter of a motorcycle passing out by the other. Young Mont, no doubt, so Fleur had not been lonely. But he went in with a sinking heart. In the cream-paneled drawing-room she was sitting with her elbows on her knees and her chin on her clasped hands in front of a white chamelea-plant filled the far place. That glanced at her before she saw him renewed his dread. What was she seeing among those white chameleas? Well, Father. Somes shook his head. His tongue failed him. This was murderous work. He saw her eyes delayed, her lips quivering. What? What? Quick, Father! My dear, said Somes, I—I did my best, but— and again he shook his head. Fleur ran to him and put her hand on each of his shoulders. She? No, muttered Somes. He. I was to tell you that it was no use. He must do what his father wished before he died. He caught her by the waist. Come, child, don't let them hurt you. They're not worth your little finger. Fleur tore herself from his grasp. You didn't—couldn't have tried. You—you betrayed me, Father!" Bitterly wounded, Somes gazed at her passionate figure writhing there in front of him. You—you didn't try. You—you didn't. I was a fool. I won't believe he could. He ever could. Only yesterday he—oh, why did I ask you? Yes, said Somes quietly. Why did you? I swallowed my feelings. I did my best for you against my judgment. And this is my reward. Good night. With every nerve in his body twitching, he went toward the door. Fleur darted after him. He gives me up. You mean that, Father?" Somes turned and forced himself to answer. Yes. Oh! right, Fleur. What did you—what could you have done in those old days? The breathless sense of really monstrous injustice cut the power of speech in Somes' throat. What had he done? What have they done to him? And with quite unconscious dignity he put his hand on his breast and looked at her. It's a shame! cried Fleur passionately. Somes went out. He mounted slow and icy to his pitcher gallery and paced among his treasures. Outrageous! Oh, outrageous! She was spoiled—ah! and who had spoiled her? He stood still before the Goya copy. Accustomed to her own way and everything, Fleur of his life, and now that she couldn't have it. He turned to the window for some air. Daylight was dying, the moon rising gold behind the poplars. What sound was that? Why, that piano thing, a dark tune with a thrum and a throb. She had set it going. What comfort could she get from that? His eyes caught movement down there beyond the lawn under the trellis of rambler roses and younger casea trees where the moonlight fell. There she was, roaming up and down. His heart gave a little sickening jump. What would she do under this blow? How could he tell? What did he know of her? He'd only loved her all his life, looked on her as the apple of his eye. He knew nothing, had no notion. There she was, and that dark tune and the river gleaming in the moonlight. I must go out, he thought. He hastened down to the drawing-room, lighted just as he had left it, with the piano thrumming out that waltz, or foxtrot, or whatever they called it these days, and passed through onto the veranda. Where could he watch without her seeing him? And he stole down through the fruit-garden to the boat-house. He was between her and the river now, and his heart felt lighter. She was his daughter, and Annette. She wouldn't do anything foolish. But there it was. He didn't know. From the boat-house window he could see the last casea and the spin of her skirt when she turned in her restless march. That tune had run down at last, thank goodness. He crossed the floor and looked through the father-window at the water, slow-flowing past the lilies. It made little bubbles against them bright where a moon-streak fell. He remembered suddenly that early morning when he had slept on the house-boat after his father died, and she had just been born nearly nineteen years ago. Even now he recalled the unaccustomed world when he woke up, the strange feeling it had given him. That day the second passion of his life began, for this girl of his roaming under the acaches. What a comfort she had been to him. On all the soreness and sense of outrage left him. If he could make her happy again he didn't care. An owl flew, queaking, a bat flitted by, the moonlight brightened and broadened on the water. How long was she going to roam about like this? He went back to the window, and suddenly saw her coming down to the bank. She stood quite close on the landing-stage. And so he was watched, clenching his hands. Should he speak to her? His excitement was intense, the stillness of her figure, its youth, its absorption in despair, in longing, in itself. He would always remember it, moon-lit like that, and the faint sweet reek of the river, and the shivering of the willow-leaves. She had everything in the world that he could give her, except the one thing that she could not have, because of him. The perversity of things hurt him at that moment, as might a fish-bone in his throat. Then with an infinite relief he saw her turn back towards the house. What could he give her to make amends, pearls, travel, horses, other young men, anything she wanted, that he might lose the memory of her young figure, lonely, by the water? There she had set that tune going again. Why? It was a mania, dark, thrumming, faint, travelling from the house. It was as though she had said, If I can't have something to keep me going, I shall die of this. So he was dimly understood. Well, if it helped her, let her keep it thrumming on all night. And, mousing back through the fruit-garden, he regained the veranda. Though he meant to go in and speak to her now, he still hesitated, not knowing what to say, trying hard to recall how it felt to be thwarted in love. He ought to know, ought to remember, and he could not. Gone all real recollection, except that it had hurt him horribly. In this blankness he stood, passing his handkerchief over hands and lips, which were very dry. By crenning his head he could just see Fleur, standing with her back to that piano still grinding out its tune. Her arms tight crossed on her breast, a lighted cigarette between her lips, whose smoke half veiled her face. The expression on it was strange to soams, the eyes shone and stared, and every feature was alive with a sort of wretched scorn and anger. Once or twice he had seen a net-look like that. The face was too vivid, too naked, not his daughters at that moment. And he dared not go in, realising the futility of any attempt of consolation. He sat down in the shadow of the inglenook, monstrous trick that fate had played him, nemesis, that old unhappy marriage, and in God's name, why? How was he to know, when he wanted Irene so violently, and she consented to be his, that she would never love him? The tune died and was renewed, and died again, and still soams sat in the shadow, waiting for he knew not what. The fag of Fleur's cigarette flung through the window, fell on the grass, he watched it glowing, burning itself out. The moon had freed herself above the poplars, and poured her unreality on the garden. Comfortless light, mysterious, withdrawn, like the beauty of that woman who had never loved him, dappling the nemesias and the stalks with a vesture not of earth. Flowers, and his flower so unhappy! Ah! why could not one put happiness into local loans, gild its edges, insure it against going down? Light had ceased to flow out now from the drawing-room window. All was silent and dark in there. Had she gone up? He rose, and tiptoeing peered in. It seemed so. He entered, the veranda kept the moonlight out, and at first he could see nothing but the outlines of furniture blacker than the darkness. He groped towards the father-window to shut it. His foot struck a chair, and he heard a gasp. There she was, curled and crushed into the corner of the sofa. His hand hovered. Did she want his consolation? He stood, gazing at that ball of crushed frills and hair and graceful youth, trying to burrow its way out of sorrow. How leave her there! At last he touched her hair, and said, Come, darling, better go to bed. I'll make it up to you somehow. How fatuous! But what could he have said? End of Part 3, Chapter 8 Recording by Simon Evers Part 3, Chapter 9 of Toilet This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Simon Evers The Foresight Saga 3 Toilet by John Goresworthy Part 3, Chapter 9, Under the Oak Tree When their visitor had disappeared, John and his mother stood without speaking, till he said suddenly, I ought to have seen him out. But Somes was already walking down the drive, and John went upstairs to his father's studio, not trusting himself to go back. The expression on his mother's face confronting the man she had once been married to had sealed a resolution growing within him ever since she left him the night before. It had put the finishing touch of reality. To marry Fleur would be to hit his mother in the face, but to betray his dead father it was no good. John had the least resentful of natures. He bore his parents no grudge in this hour of his distress. For one so young there was a rather strange power in him of seeing things in some sort of proportion. It was worse for Fleur, worse for his mother even, than it was for him. Harder than to give up was to be given up, or to be the cause of someone you loved giving up for you. He must not, would not behave grudgingly. While he stood watching the tardy sunlight, he had again that sudden vision of the world which had come to him the night before. Sea on sea, country on country, millions on millions of people, all with their own lives, energies, joys, griefs and suffering, all with things they had to give up and separate struggles for existence. Even though he might be willing to give up all else for the one thing he couldn't have, he would be a fool to think his feelings match up much in so vast a world, and to behave like a cry-baby or a cad. He pictured the people who had nothing, the millions who had given up life in the war, and the millions whom the war had left with life and little else. The hungry children he had read of, the shattered men, people in prison, every kind of unfortunate, and they did not help him much. If one had to miss a meal, what comfort in the knowledge that many others had to miss it too? There was more distraction in the thought of getting away out into this vast world of which he knew nothing yet. He could not go on staying here, sheltered with everything so slick and comfortable and nothing to do but brood and think what might have been. He could not go back to Wonston and the memories of Fleur. If he saw her again, he could not trust himself, and if he stayed here or went back there, he would surely see her. While they were within reach of each other, that must happen. To go far away and quickly was the only thing to do. But, however much he loved his mother, he did not want to go away with her. Then, feeling that was brutal, he made up his mind desperately to propose that they should go to Italy. For two hours in that melancholy room he tried to master himself, dressed solemnly for dinner. His mother had done the same. They ate little at some length and talked of his father's catalogue. The show was arranged for October and beyond clerical detail there was nothing more to do. After dinner she put on a cloak and they went out, walked a little, talked a little till they were standing silent at last beneath the oak tree. Ruled by the thought, if I show anything I show all, John put his arm through hers and said quite casually, Mother, let's go to Italy. Irene pressed his arm and said as casually, It would be very nice, but I've been thinking you ought to see and do more than you would if I were with you. But then you be alone. I was once alone for more than twelve years. Besides, I should like to be here for the opening of Father's show. John's grip tightened round her arm. He was not deceived. You couldn't stay here all by yourself. It's too big. Not here, perhaps. In London. And I might go to Paris after the show opens. You ought to have a year at least, John, and see the world. Yes, I'd like to see the world and rough it, but I don't want to leave you all alone. My dear, I owe you that at least. If it's for your good, it'll be for mine. Why not start tomorrow you've got your passport? Yes, if I'm going it'd better be at once. Only, Mother, if— If I wanted to stay out somewhere, America or anywhere, would you mind coming presently? Wherever and whenever you send for me. But don't send until you really want me. John drew a deeper breath. I feel England's chokey. They stood a few minutes longer under the oak tree, looking out to where the grandstand at Epsom was veiled in evening. The branches kept the moonlight from them, so that it only fell everywhere else, over the fields and far away, and on the windows of the creeped house behind, which soon would be to let. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Simon Evers. The October paragraphs describing the wedding of Fleur Forsythe to Michael Montt hardly convey the symbolic significance of this event. In the union of the great-granddaughter of Superior Dosset, with the heir of a ninth baronet, was the outward and visible sign of that merger of class in class, which buttresses the political stability of a realm. The time had come when the Forsythe's might resign their natural resentment against a flummary not theirs by birth, and accept it as the still more natural dew of their possessive instincts. Besides, they had to mount to make room for all those so much more newly rich. In that quiet but tasteful ceremony in Hanover Square and afterward among the furniture in Green Street, it had been impossible for those not in the know to distinguish the Forsythe troop from the Montt contingent. So far away was Superior Dosset now. Was there, in the crease of his trousers, the expression of his mustache, his action to all the shine on his top hat, a pin to choose between Soames and the ninth baronet himself? Was not Fleur as self-possessed, quick, glancing, pretty, and hard, as the likeliest Muscombe, Montt, or Charwell Philly, present? If anything, the Forsythe had it in dress and looks and manners. They had become upper class, and now their name would be formally recorded in the stud-book, their money joined to land. Whether this was a little late in the day and those rewards of the possessive instinct, lands, and money destined for the melting-pot was still a question so moot that it was not mooted. After all, Timothy had said consuls were going up. Timothy, the last, the missing link. Timothy, in extremis on the Bayswater Road, so France he had reported. It was whispered, too, that this young Montt was a sort of socialist, strangely wise of him, and then the nature of insurance considering the days they lived in. There was no uneasiness on that score. The landed classes produced that sort of amiable foolishness at times turned to safe uses and confined to theory. As George remarked to his sister Francie, they'll soon be having puppies. They'll give him paws. The church with white flowers and something blue in the middle of the east window looked extremely chaste as though endeavouring to counteract the somewhat lurid phraseology of a service calculated to keep the thoughts of all on puppies. Four sites, Heyman's, Treatieman's, sat in the left aisle, Mont's, Charwell's, Muscombe's in the right. While a sprinkling of Fleur's fellow-sufferers at school and of Mont's fellow-sufferers in the war gaped indiscriminately from either side, and three maiden ladies who dropped in on their way from Skywards brought up the rare, together with two Mont retainers and Fleur's old nurse. In the unsettled state of the country as full a house as could be expected, Mrs. Valdarti, who sat with her husband in the third row, squeezed his hand more than once during the performance. To her, who knew the plot of this tragic comedy, its most dramatic foment was well-nigh painful. I wonder if John knows by instinct, she thought. John, out in British Columbia. She had received a letter from him only that morning which had made her smile and say, John's in British Columbia, Val, because he wants to be in California. He thinks it's too nice there. Oh, said Val, so he's beginning to see a joke again. He's bought some land and sent for his mother. What on earth will she do out there? All she cares about is John. Do you still think it is a happy release? Val's shrewed eyes narrowed to gray pinpoints between their dark lashes. Fleur wouldn't have suited him a bit. She's not bread-right. Poor little Fleur, sighed Holly. Ah, it was strange, this marriage. The young man, Mont, had caught her on the rebound, of course, in the reckless mood of one whose ship has just gone down. Such a plunge could not but be, as Val put it, an outside chance. There was little to be told from the back view of her young cousin's veil, and Holly's eyes reviewed the general aspect of this Christian wedding. She, who had made a love-match which had been successful, had a horror of unhappy marriages. This might not be one in the end, but it was clearly a toss-up. And to consecrate a toss-up in this fashion with manufactured unction before a crowd of fashionable free thinkers, for who thought otherwise and free or not at all when they were doled up? Seemed to her as near as sin as one could find in an age which had abolished them. Her eyes wandered from the prelet in his robes. A charwe, the four sights had not as yet produced a prelet. To Val, beside her, thinking, she was certain, of the Mayfly Philly at fifteen to one for the Cambridgeshire. They passed on and caught the profile of the Ninth Baronet in counterfeitment of the kneeling process. She could just see the neat ruck above his knees where he had pulled his trousers up and thought, Val's forgotten to pull up his. Her eyes passed to the pew in front of her where Winifred's substantial form was gowned with passion, and on again to Soames and Annette kneeling side by side. A little smile came on her lips. Prospera performed back from the south seas of the Channel, kneeling to about sixty rows behind. Yes, this was a funny small business, however it turned out. Still, it was in a proper church and would be in the proper papers tomorrow morning. They had begun a hymn. She could hear the Ninth Baronet across the isle singing of the hosts of Midian. Her little finger touched Val's thumb. They were holding the same hymn-book. A tiny thrill passed through her preserved from twenty years ago. He stooped and whispered, I say, do you remember the rat? The rat there waiting in Cape Colony which had cleaned its whiskers behind the table of the registrars. And between her little and third fingers she squeezed his huff up hard. The hymn was over. The prelate had begun to deliver his discourse. He told them of the dangerous times they lived in and the awful conduct of the House of Lords in connection with divorce. They were all soldiers, he said, in the trenches under the poisonous gas of the Prince of Darkness and must be manful. The purpose of marriage was children, not mere sinful happiness. An imp danced in Holley's eyes. Val's eyelashes were meeting. Whatever happened he must not snore. Her finger and thumb closed on his thigh till he stirred uneasily. The discourse was over. The danger passed. They were signing in the vestry and general relaxation had set in. A voice behind her said, Will she stay the course? Who's that? She whispered. Old George Forsyte! Holly de Buel is scrutinised, one of whom she had often heard. Fresh from South Africa and ignorant of her kith and kin without an almost childish curiosity, he was very big and very dapper. His eyes gave her a funny feeling of having no particular clothes. They're off, she heard him say. They came, stepping from the chancel. Holly looked first in young Mont's face. His lips and ears were tittering, his eyes shifting from his feet to the hand within his arm, stared suddenly before them as a firing-party. He gave Holly the feeling that he was spiritually intoxicated. But Fleur, ha! That was different. The girl was perfectly composed, prettier than ever, in her white robes and veil over her banged, dark chestnut hair. Her eyelids hovered demure over her dark, hazel eyes. Outwardly, she seemed all there. Subsequently, where was she? As those two passed, Fleur raised her eyelids. The restless lint of those clear whites remained on Holly's vision as might the flutter of caged bird's wings. In Green Street, Winifred stood to receive just a little less composed than usual. Somes' request for the use of her house had come on her at a deeply psychological moment. Under the influence of a remark of Prosper Profonde she had begun to exchange her empire for expressionistic furniture. There were the most abusing arrangements with violet, green and orange blobs and scrigals to be had at Milards. Another month and the change would have been complete. Just now the very intriguing recruits she had enlisted did not march too well with the Old Guard. It was as if her regiment were half in khaki, half in scarlet and bearskins. But her strong and comfortable character made the best of it in a drawing-room which typified perhaps more perfectly than she imagined, the semi-bolshevised imperialism of her country. After all, this was a day of merger and you couldn't have too much of it. Her eyes travelled indulgently among her guests. Soames had gripped the back of a bull chair. Young Mont was behind that awfully amusing screen which no one has yet been able to explain to her. The Ninth Baronet had shied violently at a round scarlet table inlaid under last with blue Australian buttery's wings and was clinging to her Louis Carr's cabinet. Francie Forsyte had seized the new mantle-board, finally carved with little purple grotesques on an ebony ground. George, ever by the old spinette, was holding a little sky-blue book as if about to enter bets. Prosper Perforne was twiddling the knob of the open door black with peacock-blue panels and Annette's hands, close by, were grasping her own waist. Two muskums clung to the balcony among the plants as if feeling ill, Lady Mont, thin and brave-looking, had taken up her long-handled glasses and was gazing at the central light shade of ivory and orange dashed with deep magenta as if the heavens had opened. Everybody, in fact, seemed holding on to something. Only Fleur, still in her bridal dress, was detached from all support, flinging her words and glances to left and right. The room was full of the bubble and squeak of conversation. Nobody could hear anything that anybody said, which seemed of little consequence to one waiting for anything so slow as an answer. Modern conversation seemed to Winifred so different from the days of her prime when a drawl was all the vogue. Still it was amusing, which was, of course, all that mattered. Even the foresights were talking with extreme rapidity, Fleur and Christopher and Imogen and young Nicholas as his youngest, Patrick. Somes, of course, was silent, but George, by the spinette, kept up a running cometry and francy by her mantle-shelf. Winifred drew nearer to the ninth baronet. He seemed to promise a certain repose. His nose was fine and drooped a little, his gray moustaches, too. And she said, drawing through her smile, it's rather nice, isn't it? His reply shot out of his smile like a snipped bread pellet. Do you remember in Fraser the tribe that berries the bride up to the waist? He spoke as fast as anybody. He had dark, lively little eyes, too all crinkled round like a Catholic priest. Winifred felt suddenly he might say things she would regret. They're always so amusing, weddings, she murmured, and moved on to Somes. He was curiously still, and Winifred saw at once what was dictating his immobility. To his right was George Forsyte, to his left Annette, and Prosper performed. He could not move without either seeing those two together, or the reflection of them in George Forsyte's shaping eyes. He was quite right not to be taking notice. They said Timothy's sinking. He said, lumbly. Where will you put him, Somes? Highgate. He counted on his fingers. It'll make twelve of them there, including wives. How do you think Fleur looks? Remarkably well. Somes nodded. He had never seen her look prettier, yet he could not rid himself of the impression that this business was unnatural, remembering still that crushed figure burrowing into the corner of the sofa. From that night to this day he had received from her no confidences. He knew from his chauffeur that she had made one more attempt on Robin Hill and drawn blank, an empty house, no one at home. He knew that she had received a letter, but not what was in it, except that it had made her hide herself and cry. He'd remarked that she looked at him sometimes when she thought he wasn't noticing as if she were wondering still what he had done for Suth and that these people hate him so. Well, there it was. Annette had come back and things had worn on through the summer, very miserable, till suddenly Fleur had said she was going to marry Young Mont. She had shown him a little more affection when she told him that. And he had yielded. What was the good of opposing it? God knew that he had never wished to have fought her in anything. And the young man seemed quite delirious and no doubt she was in a reckless mood and she was young, absurdly young. But if he opposed her he didn't know what she would do. For all he could tell she might want to take up a profession, become a doctor, or solicitor, or some such nonsense. She had no aptitude for painting, writing, music, in his view the legitimate occupations of unmarried women if they must do something in these days. On the whole she was safer married, and she could see too well how feverish and restless she was at home. Annette too had been in favour of it. Annette, from behind the veil of his refusal to know what she was about if she was about anything. Annette had said that her marry this young man is a nice boy, not so heighty-flighty as he seems. Where she got her expressions he didn't know, but her opinions soothed his doubts. His wife, whatever her conduct, had clear eyes and an almost depressing amount of common sense. He had settled fifty thousand on Fleur, taking care that there was no cross-settlement in case he didn't turn out well. Could it turn out well? She had not got over that other boy. He knew. They were to go to Spain for the honeymoon. He would be even lonelier when she was gone. But later perhaps she would forget and turn to him again. Winifred's voice broke on his reverie. Why, of all wonders, June! There, in the gibar, what things she wore with her hair straying from under a fillet Somes saw his cousin and Fleur going forward to greet her. The two passed from their view out onto the stairway. Really, said Winifred, she does the most impossible things to see her coming. What made you ask her, muttered Somes, because I thought she wouldn't accept, of course. Winifred had forgotten that behind conduct lies the main trend of character, or in other words, omitted to remember that Fleur was now a lame duck. On receiving her invitation June had first thought, I wouldn't go near them for the world. And then one morning had awakened from a dream that Fleur waving to her from a vote with a wild, unhappy gesture. And she had changed her mind. When Fleur came forward and said to her, Do you come up while I'm changing my dress? She followed up the stairs. The girl led the way into Imogen's old bedroom set ready for her toilet. June sat down on the bed thin and upright like a little spirit in the seer and yellow. Fleur locked the door. The girl stood before her divested of her wedding-dress. What a pretty thing she was. I suppose you think me a fool, she said with covering lips, when it was to have been John. But what does it matter? Michael wants me, and I don't care. It'll get me away from home. Diving her hand into the frills on her breasts, she brought out a letter. John wrote me this. June read, Lake, on the other side of the bed. Lake, Ock and Argon, British Columbia. I'm not coming back to England. Bless you always. John. She's made safe, you see, said Fleur. June handed back the letter. That's not fair to Irene, she said. She always told John he could do as he wished. Fleur smiled bitterly. Tell me, didn't she spoil your life, too? June looked up. Maybe you can spoil a life, my dear, that's nonsense. Things happen, but we bob up. With a sort of terror, she saw the girls sink on her knees and bury her face in the jibber. A strangled sob mounted to June's ears. It's all right, all right, she murmured. Don't. There, there. But the point of the girls' chin was pressed ever closer into her thigh, and the sound was dreadful. Well, well, it had to come. She would feel better afterward. June stroked the short hair of that shapely head and all the scattered mother-sense in her focused itself and passed through the tips of her fingers into the girl's brain. Don't sit down under it, my dear, she said at last. We can't control life, but we can fight it. Make the best of things. Don't. Make the best of things. I've had to. I held on, like you, and I cried as you're crying now. And look at me. Fleur raised her head. A sob merged suddenly into a little choked laugh. In truth, it was a thin and rather wild and wasted spirit she was looking at. But it had brave eyes. All right, she said, I'm sorry, I shall forget and scrambling to her feet she went over to the watch-stand. June watched her removing with cold water the traces of emotion. Save for a little becoming ping-ness there was nothing left when she stood before the mirror. June got off the bed and took a pin-cushion in her hand. To put two pins into the wrong places was all the vent she found for sympathy. Give me a kiss, she said, when Fleur and dug her chin into the girl's warm cheek. I want a whiff, said Fleur, don't wait. June left her, sitting on the bed with a cigarette between her lips and her eyes half closed and went downstairs. In the doorway of the drawing-room stood Soames as if unquiet at his daughter's tiredness. June tossed her head and passed down onto the half-landing. Her cousin Francie was standing there. Look, said June, pointing with her chin at Soames, that man's fatal. How do you mean, said Francie, fatal? June did not answer. I shan't wait to see them off, she said. Goodbye. Goodbye, said Francie and her eyes of a Celtic grey goggled. That old feud really it was quite romantic. Soames, moving to the well of the staircase, saw June go and drew a breath of satisfaction. Why didn't Fleur come? They would miss their train. That train would bear her away from him. Yet he could not help fidgeting of the thought that they would lose it. And then she did come, running down in her tan-colored frock and black velvet cap and passed him into the drawing-room. He saw her kiss her mother, her aunt, Val's wife, Imogen and then come forth quick and pretty as ever. How would she treat him at this last moment of her girlhood? He couldn't hope for much. Her lips pressed the middle of his cheek. Daddy, she said and was past and gone. Daddy, she hadn't called him that for years. He drew a long breath and followed slowly down. There was all the folly with that confetti-stuff and the rest of it to go through with yet. But he would like just to catch her smile if she leaned out, though they would hit her in the eye with a shoe if they didn't take care. Young Montervoy said fervently in his ear, Good-bye, sir, and thank you, I'm so fearfully bucked. Good-bye, he said. Don't miss your train. He stood on the bottom-step but three, whence he could see about the heads, the silly hats and heads, they were in the car now and there was that stuff shirring and there went the shoe a flood of something welled up in seams, and he didn't know. He couldn't see. End of Part 3, Chapter 10, Recording by Simon Evers Part 3, Chapter 11 of Toilette This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org Recording by Simon Evers The Foresight Saga 3, Toilette, by John Gorsworthy Part 3, Chapter 11, The Last of the Old Foresights When they came to prepare that terrific symbol Timothy Foresight, the one pure individualist left, the only man who hadn't heard of the Great War they found him wonderful not even death had undermined his soundness. To smither and cook that preparation came like final evidence of what they had never believed possible the end of the old Foresight family on earth. Poor Mr. Timothy must now take a harp and sing in the company of Miss Foresight, Mrs. Julia, Miss Hester with Mr. Julia, Mr. Swithin, Mr. James, Mr. Roger and Mr. Nicholas of the party. Whether Mrs. Heyman would be there was more doubtful seeing that she had been cremated. Secretly Cook thought that Mr. Timothy would be upset. He had always been so set against barrel organs. How many times had she not said Drat the thing, there it is again! Smither, you better run up and see what you can do. And in her heart have so enjoyed the tunes if she hadn't known that Mr. Timothy would ring the bell in a minute and say here, take him a hipney and tell him to move on. Often they had been allige to add threepence of their own before the man would go. Timothy had ever underrated the value of emotion. Luckily he had taken the organs for blue-bottles in his last years which had been a comfort and they had been able to enjoy the tunes. Cook wondered, it was a change. And Mr. Timothy had never liked change. But she did not speak of this to Smither who did so take a line of her own in regard to heaven that it quite put one about sometimes. She cried while Timothy was being prepared and they all had sherry afterward out of the yearly Christmas bottle which would not be needed now. Ah, dear, she had been there five and forty years and Smither three and forty. And now they would be going to a tiny house in Tooting to live on their savings and what Miss Hester had so kindly left them. What, to take fresh service after the glorious past? No. But they would just like to see Mr. Soames again and Mrs. Darty and Miss Francia and Miss Euphemia and even if they had to take their own cab they felt they must go to the funeral. For six years Mr. Timothy had been their baby getting younger and younger every day till at last he had been too young to live. They spent the regulation hours of waiting in polishing and dusting in catching the one mouse left and asphyxiating the last beetle so as to leave it nice discussing with each other what they would buy at the sale. Miss Anne's work-box Miss Julie's that is Mrs. Julia's seaweed-album The fire-screen Miss Hester had crawled and Mr. Timothy's hair little golden curls glued into a black frame or they must have those only the price of things had gone up so it fell to Soames to issue invitations for the funeral he had them drawn up by Gradman in his office only blood relations and no flowers six carriages were ordered the will would be read afterward of the house he arrived at eleven o'clock to see that all was ready the last old Gradman came in black gloves and crepe on his hat he and Soames stood in the drawing-room waiting at half-past eleven the carriages drew up in a long row but no one else appeared Gradman said it surprised me Mr. Soames I posted them myself I don't know said Soames he'd lost touch with the family Soames had often noticed in old days how much more neighborly his family were to the dead than to the living but now the way they'd flocked to Fleur's wedding and abstained from Timothy's funeral seemed to show some vital change there might of course be another reason for Soames felt that if he had not known the contents of Timothy's will he might have stayed away himself through delicacy Timothy had left a lot of money with nobody in particular to leave it too they might not like to seem to expect something at twelve o'clock the procession left the door Timothy alone in the first carriage under glass then Soames alone then Gradman alone then Cook and Smither together they started at a walk but were soon trotting under a bright sky at the entrance to Highgate Cemetery they were delayed by service in the chapel Soames would have liked to stay outside in the sunshine he didn't believe a word of it on the other hand it was a form of insurance which could not safely be neglected in case there might be something in it after all they walked up to and to he and Gradman Cook and Smither to the family vault it was not very distinguished for the funeral of the last old foresight he took Gradman into his carriage on the way back to the Bayswater Road in his heart he had a surprise in Pickle for the old chap who had served the foresight four and fifty years a treat that was entirely his doing how well he remembered saying to Timothy the day after Aunt Hester's funeral well Uncle Timothy there's Gradman he's taken a lot of trouble for the family what do you say to leaving him five thousand and his surprise seeing the difficulty there in Timothy to leave anything when Timothy had nodded and now the old chap would be as pleased as punch for Mrs. Gradman he knew had a weak heart and their son had lost a leg in the wall it was extraordinary gratifying to Soames to have left him five thousand pounds of Timothy's money they sat down together in the little drawing-room whose walls like a vision of heaven were sky blue and gold and the frame unnaturally bright and every speck of dust removed from every piece of furniture to read that little masterpiece the will of Timothy with his back to the light in Aunt Hester's chair Soames faced Gradman with his face to the light on Aunt Anne's sofa and crossing his legs began this is the last will and testament of me Timothy foresight of the Bower Bayswater Road London I point to my nephew Soames foresight of the shelter Maple Durham and Thomas Gradman of 159 Folly Road Highgate here in after call my trustees to be the trustees and executors of this my will to the said Soames foresight I leave the sum of one thousand pounds free of legacy duty and to the said Thomas Gradman I leave the sum of five thousand pounds free of legacy duty Soames paused old Grabham was leaning forward conversibly gripping a stout black knee with each of his thick hands his mouth had fallen open so that the gold fillings of three teeth gleamed his eyes were blinking two tears rolled slowly out of them Soames read hastily on all the rest of my property of whatsoever description I bequeathed to my trustees upon trust to convert and hold the same upon the following trusts namely to pay there out all my debts, funeral expenses and outgoings of any kind in connection with my will and to hold the residue thereof in trust for that male lineal descent of my father Jolly and foresight by his marriage with Anne Pierce who after the decease of all lineal descendants were the male or female of my said father by his said marriage in being at the time of my death shall last attain the age of 21 years it being my desire that my property shall be nursed to the extreme limit permitted by the laws of England for the benefit of such male lineal descent as aforesaid Soames read the investment and attestation clauses and Ceasing looked at Grabman the old fellow was wiping his brow with a large handkerchief whose brilliant colour supplied a sudden festive tinge to the proceedings my word Mr. Soames he said and it was clear that the lawyer in him had utterly wiped out the man my word why there are two babies now and some quite young children if one of them lives to be 80 is not a great age and add 21 that's a hundred years and Mr. Timothy worth a hundred and fifty thousand pound net if he's worth a penny compound interest of five percent doubles you in fourteen years in fourteen years three hundred thousand six hundred thousand in twenty eight twelve hundred thousand in forty two twenty four hundred thousand in fifty six four million eight hundred thousand in seventy nine million six hundred thousand in eighty four why in a hundred years it'll be twenty million and we shan't live to use it it is a will Soames said dryly anything may happen the state might take the lot they're capable of anything in these days and carry five said Grabman to himself I forgot Mr. Timothy's in consoles we should get more than two percent with this income tax to be on the safe side say eight millions still that's a pretty penny Soames rose and handed him the will you're going into the city take care of that and do what's necessary advertise but there are no debts when's the sale Tuesday week said Grabman life for lives in being twenty-nine years after it it's a long way off but I'm glad he's left it in the family the sale, not at Jobsons in view of the Victorian nature of the effects was far more freely attended than the funeral though not by Cook and Smither for Soames had taken it on himself to give them their hearts desires Winifibra's present Euphemia and Francie and Eustice had come in his car the miniatures and magazines and JR drawings have been bought in by Soames and relics of no marketable value were set aside in an off-room for members of the family who cared to have mementos these were the only restrictions upon bidding characterised by an almost tragic langer not one piece of furniture no picture or porcelain figure appealed to modern taste the homebirds had fallen like autumn leaves when taken from where they had not hummed for sixty years it was painful to Soames to see the chairs his aunts had sat on the little grand piano they had practically never played the books whose outsides they had gazed at the china they had dusted the curtains they had drawn the hearthrug which had warmed their feet above all the beds they'd lain and died in sold to little dealers and the housewives of Fulham and yet what could one do buy them and stick them in a lumber-room no, they had to go the way of all flesh and furniture and be worn out but when they put up aunts' sofa and were going to knock it down for thirty shillings he cried out suddenly five pounds the sensation was considerable and the sofa hears when that little sale was over in the fusty sale-room and those Victorian ashes scattered he went out into the misty October sunshine feeling as if Kosinus had died out of the world and the board Telet was up indeed revolutions on the horizon Fleur in Spain no Comfort in Annette no Timothy's on the Bayswater Road in the irreversible desolation of his soul he went into the Gounapernar gallery that chap Jolian's watercolours were on view there he went in to look down his nose at them it might give him some faint satisfaction the news had trickled through from June to Val's wife from her to Val from Val to his mother from her to Soames but the house, the fatal house at Robin Hill was for sale an Irene going to join her boy out in British Columbia or some such place for one wild moment after Soames why shouldn't I buy it back I meant it for mine no sooner come than gone two lugubrious a triumph with too many humiliating memories for himself and Fleur she would never live there after what had happened no, the place must go its way to some pier or profiteer it had been a bone of contention from the first, the shell of the feud and with the woman gone it was an empty shell for sale or to let with his mind's eye he could see that board raised high above the ivory wall which he had built he passed through the first of the two rooms in the gallery there was certainly a body of work and now that the fellow was dead it did not seem so trivial the drawings were pleasing enough with quite a sense of atmosphere and something individual in the brushwork his father and my father he and I his child and mine thought Soames so it had gone on and all about that woman softened by the events of the past week affected by the melancholy beauty of the autumn day Soames came nearer than he had ever been to realisation of that truth passing the understanding of a foresight pure that the body of beauty has a spiritual essence uncatchable saved by a devotion which thinks not of self after all he was near that truth in his devotion to his daughter perhaps that made him understand a little how he had missed the prize and there among the drawings of his kinsmen who had attained to that which he had found beyond his reach he thought of him and her with a tolerance which surprised him but he did not buy a drawing just as he passed the seat of custom on his return to the outer air he met with a contingency which had not been entirely absent from his mind when he went into the gallery Arini herself coming in so she had not gone yet and was still paying farewell visits to that fellow's remains he subdued the little involuntary leap of his subconsciousness the mechanical reaction of his senses to the charm of this once owned woman and passed her with averted eyes but when he had gone by he could not for the life of him help looking back this then was finality the heat and stress of his life the madness and the longing thereof the only defeat he had known would be over when she faded from his view this time even such memories had their own queer aching value she too was looking back suddenly she lifted her loved hand her lips smiled faintly her dark eyes seemed to speak it was the turn of soams to make no answer to that smile and that little farewell wave he went out into the fashionable street quivering from head to foot he knew what she had meant to say now that I am going for ever out of the reach of you and yours forgive me I wish you well that was the meaning last sign of that terrible reality passing morality, duty, common sense her aversion from him who had owned her body but had never touched her spirit or her heart it hurt yes more than if she had kept her mask unmoved her hand unlifted three days later in that fast yellowing October soams took a taxi cab to Highgate Cemetery and mounted through its white forest to the foresight vault close to the cedar above catacombs and columbaria tall, ugly and individual it looked like an apex of the competitive system he could remember a discussion wherein Swithin had advocated the addition to its face of the pheasant proper the proposal had been rejected in favour of a wreath in stone above the stark words the family vault of Jolly and Forsight 1850 it was in good order all traces of the recent interment had been removed and its sober grey glooned reposefully in the sunshine the whole family lay there now except old Jolly and's wife who had gone back under a contract to her own family vault in Suffolk old Jolly and himself lying at Robin Hill and Susan Heyman cremated so that none knew where she might be soams gazed at it with satisfaction massive, needing little attention and this was important for he was well aware that no one would attend to it when he himself was gone and he would have to be looking out for lodgings soon he might have twenty years before him but one never knew twenty years without an aunt or uncle with a wife of whom one had better not know anything with a daughter gone from home his mood inclined to melancholy and retrospection this cemetery was full, they said of people with extraordinary names buried in extraordinary taste still, they had a fine view up here right over London Annette had once given him a story to read by that Frenchman Mopasson, mostly Goober's concern where all the skeletons emerged from their graves one night and all the pious inscriptions on the stones were altered to descriptions of their sins not a true story at all he didn't know about the French but there was not much real harm in English people except their teeth and their taste which was certainly deplorable the family vault of Jolly and Forsyte 1850 a lot of people had been buried here since then a lot of English life crumbled to mould and dust the boom of an airplane passing under the gold-tinted clouds caused him to lift his eyes the use of a lot of expansion had gone on but it all came back to a cemetery to a name and a date on a tomb and he thought with a curious pride that he and his family had done little or nothing to help this feverish expansion good, solid middlemen they had gone to work with dignity to manage and possess Superior Dosset indeed had built in a dreadful and jolly and painted in a doubtful period but so far as he remembered not another of them all had soiled his hands by creating anything unless you counted Val-Darty and his horse-breeding collectors, solicitors barristers, merchants publishers, accountants, directors land agents, even soldiers there they had been the country had expanded as it were in spite of them they had checked, controlled defended and taken advantage of the process and when you considered how Superior Dosset had begun life with next to nothing and his lineal descendants already owned what Old Grabman estimated at between a million and a million and a half it was not so bad and yet he sometimes felt as if the family bolt was shot their possessive instinct dying out they seemed unable to make money this fourth generation they were going into art literature, farming or the army or just living on what was left of them they had no push and no tenacity they would die out if they didn't care soams turned from the vault and faced toward the breeze the air up here would be delicious if any could rid his nerves of the feeling that mortality was in it he gazed restlessly at the crosses and the urns, the angels, the immortals the flowers, gaudy or withering and suddenly he noticed a spot which seemed so different from anything else up there that he was obliged to walk the few necessary yards and look at it a sober corner with a massive queer-shaped cross of grey, rough-hewn granite guarded by four dark yew-trees the spot was free from the pressure of the other graves having a little box-hedged garden on the far side and in front a golden-y birch tree this oasis in the desert of conventional graves appealed to the aesthetic sense of soams and he sat down there in the sunshine through those trembling gold birch leaves he gazed out at London and yielded to the waves of memory he thought of Irene in Montpellier Square when her hair was rusty golden and her white shoulders his Irene, the prize of his love-passion resisted to his ownership he saw Bacini's body lying in that white mortuary an Irene sitting on the sofa looking at space with the eyes of a dying bird again he thought of her by the little green niob in the Bois de Boulogne once more rejecting him his fancy took him on beside his drifting river on the November day when Fleur was to be born took him to the dead leaves floating on the green-tinged water and the snake-headed weed forever swaying and nosing sinuous, blind, tethered and on again to the window opened to the cold starry night above Hyde Park with his father lying dead his fancy darted to that picture of the future town to that boy's and Fleur's first meeting to the bluish trail of prosper-performance cigar and Fleur in the window pointing down to where the fellow prowled to the sight of Irene in that dead fellow sitting side-by-side in the standard lords to her and that boy at Robin Hill to the sofa where Fleur lay crushed up in the corner to her lips pressed into his cheek and her farewell daddy and suddenly he saw again Irene's great-loved hand waving its last gesture of release he sat there a long time dreaming his career faithful to the scut of his possessive instinct warming himself even with its failures to let the foresight age and way of life when a man owned his soul, his investments, and his woman without check or question and now the state had, or would have, his investments, his woman had herself and God knew who had his soul to let that sane and simple creed the waters of change were foaming in carrying the promise of new forms only when their destructive flood should have passed its fool he sat there, subconscious of them but with his thoughts resolutely set on the past as a man might ride into a wild night with his face to the tail of his galloping horse a thought the Victorian dykes the waters were rolling on property, manners and morals or melody and the old forms of art waters bringing to his mouth a salt taste as of blood lapping to the foot of this high gate hill where Victorianism lay buried and sitting there high up on its most individual spot soams like a figure of investment refused their restless sounds instinctively he would not fight them there was in him too much primeval wisdom of man the possessive animal they were quite dumb when they had fulfilled their tidal fever of dispossessing and destroying when the creations and the properties of others were sufficiently broken and defected they would lapse and ebb and fresh forms would rise based on an instinct older than the fever of change the instinct of home Je m'en fiche said Prosper performed Soams did not say Je m'en fiche it was French and the fellow was a thorn at his side but deep down he knew that change was only the interval of death between two forms of life destruction necessary to make room for fresher property what though the ball was up and coziness to let someone would come along and take it again some day and only one thing really troubled him sitting there the melancholy craving in his heart because the sun was like enchampant on his face and on the clouds and on the golden birch leaves and the wind's rustle was so gentle and the yew tree-green so dark and the sickle of a moon pale in the sky he might wish and wish and never get it the beauty and the loving in the world End of Part 3 Chapter 11 and of the book To Let Recording by Simon Evers