The Forsyte Saga - Complete

ssed to France a cablegram was r

teric no immediate dan

se berth was booked for the following day. She was, indeed, in the act of conf

tter than others could train her. And if Holly had not insisted on following her example, and being trained too, she must inevitably have 'cried off.' The departure of Jolly and Val with their troop in April had further stiffened her failing resolve. But now, on the point of departure, the thought of leaving Eric Cobbley, with a wife and two childre

The cablegram, grave though it was, was almost a relief. He was now safe from bullets, anyway. And yet-this enteric was a virulent disease! The Times was full of deaths therefrom. Why could he not be lying out there in that up-country hospital, and his boy safe at home? Th

he thought: 'She has more sense than June, child though she is; more wisdom. Thank God she isn't going out.' She had seated herself in the swing, very silent and still. 'She feels

out of t

, Dad. It was through me that

's t

found it out, and thought he ought to stop it; so he dared Val to enlist. It was all my fault, Dad; and I want to go

e told him all this before! But he smothered the sarcastic sayings on his lips. Tenderness to the young was perhaps the most sacred article of his belief. He had got, no doubt, what he deserved. Engage

ou told

's a single cabin; but one of us could sleep on the flo

er late in the day to ask for th

g, my dear; they

e Town. If they won't let me nurse yet, I could stay

because he cou

one from doing an

her arms rou

are the best

olyon. If he had ever doubted his

ily," he said, "and I don't know

at the dist

ove

ious that he must make the best of it, so he went up to town with June. Whether due to her persistence, or the fact that the official they saw was an old school friend of Jolyon's, they obtained permission for Holly t

with night closing in around him, so beautiful a night, hardly whispering in the trees, and smelling so sweet that it made him ache. The grass was drenched with dew, and he kept to those flagstones, up and down, till presently it began to seem to him that he was one of three, not wheeling, but turning right about at each end, so that his father was always nearest

colour on its curving crumpled petals. He turned round to the house. Big, unlighted, not a soul beside himself to live in all that part of it. Stark loneliness! He could not go on living here alone. And yet, so long as there was beauty, why should a man feel lonely? The answer-as to some idiot's riddle-was: Because he did. The greater the beauty, the greater the loneliness, for at the back of b

sytes find difficult to reach, bred to their own way and left so comfortably off by

e of himself and Soames was trying to find a way out through the curtains, which, heavy and dark, kept him in. Several times he had crossed in front of them before he saw with delight a sudden narrow rift-a tall chink of beauty the colour of iris flowers, like a glimpse of Paradise, remote, ineffable. Stepping quickly forward to pass into it, he foun

on the second day he made up his mind to move to London and see if he could not get permission to follow

EN H

ne

. "MY DEA

reach of your advice. I would so love to see you again. Since you left Paris I don't think I have met anyone I

s your

RE

flight! He stood with a very queer smile on hi

in Richmond Park Nature was allowed to go so far and no further, putting up a brave show of being natural, seeming to say: 'Look at my instincts-they are almost passions, very nearly out of hand, but not quite, of course; t

lry, the Crown and Sceptre; it was modest, highly respectable, never out of cold beef, gooseberry

Above her on a wall, not yet Morris-papered, was a print of the Queen on a pony, amongst deer-hounds, Scotch caps, and slain stags; beside her in a pot on the window-sill wa

lightly he smothered up an emotional moment. Having eaten cold beef, pickled walnut, gooseberry tart, and drunk s

me about Paris,"

s used to that. But then Soames came. By the lit

redi

now. Those dark eyes clinging to his said as no words cou

y had he ever-old as he was-

clearness of which he would not have believed mental vision capa

ill out there,"

ed her arm

k on; I un

bracken, knee-high already, between the rabbit-holes and the oak-trees, talking of J

' he thought. Of course! One could not