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“At the House they say it’ll mean another shilling on the income tax before it’s over.”
“Oh, dear!”
At this moment a voice said: “Have they answered?” And, replacing the receiver, Winifred again sat, placid. Park Lane! From the old house there—home of her youth—one would have had a splendid view of everything—quite the headquarters! But how dreadfully the poor old Pater would have felt it! James! She seemed to see him again with his plaid over his shoulders, and his nose glued to a window-pane, trying to cure with the evidence of his old grey eyes the fatal habit they all had of not telling him anything. She still had some of his wine. And Warmson, their old butler, still kept ‘The Pouter Pigeon,’ on the river at Moulsbridge. He always sent her a Stilton cheese at Christmas, with a memorandum of the exact amount of the old Park Lane port she was to pour into it. His last letter had ended thus:
“I often think of the master, and how fond he was of going down the cellar right up to the end. As regards wine, ma’am, I’m afraid the days are not what they were. My duty to Mr. Soames and all. Dear me, it seems a long time since I first came to Park Lane.
“Your obedient servant,
“GEORGE WARMSON.
“P. S.—I had a pound or two on that colt Mr. Val bred, please to tell him—and came in useful.”
The old sort of servant! And now she had Smither, from Timothy’s, Cook having died—so mysteriously, or, as Smither put it: “Of hornwee, ma’am, I verily believe, missing Mr. Timothy as we did”—Smither as a sort of supercargo—didn’t they call it, on ships?—and really very capable, considering she was sixty, if a day, and the way her corsets creaked. After all, to be with the family again was a great comfort to the poor old soul—eight years younger than Winifred, who, like a true Forsyte, looked down on the age of others from the platform of pere
Chapter III.
HOME-COMING
Jon Forsyte’s sensations on landing at Newhaven, by the last possible boat, after five and a half years’ absence, had been most peculiar. All the way by car to Wansdon under the Sussex Downs he was in a sort of excited dream. England! What wonderful chalk, what wonderful green! What an air of having been there for ever! The sudden dips into villages, the old bridges, the sheep, the beech clumps! And the cuckoo—not heard for six years! A poet, somewhat dormant of late, stirred within this young man. Delicious old country! A
Beyond a telegram from Dieppe he had made no a
“Jon! How wonderful to see you!”
Her kiss, he remembered, had always lighted on his eyebrow—she hadn’t changed a bit. A half-sister was nicer than a full-sister, after all. With full-sisters you were almost bound to fight a little.
“What a pity you couldn’t bring A
“Sense of duty, I think. How’s Val?”
“Oh, Val’s all right. You haven’t lost your smile. D’you remember your old room?”
“Rather. And how are you, Holly?”
“So-so. I’ve become a writer, Jon.”
“Splendid!”
“Not at all. Hard labour and no reward.”
“Oh!”
“The first book was born too still for anything. A sort of ‘African Farm,’ without the spiritual frills—if you remember it.”
“Rather! But I always left the frills out.”
“Yes, we get our objection to frills from the Dad, Jon. He said to me once, ‘It’ll end in our calling all matter spirit or all spirit matter—I don’t know which.’”
“It won’t,” said Jon; “people love to divide things up. I say, I remember every stick in this room. How are the horses? Can I have a look at them and a ride tomorrow?”
“We’ll go forth early and see them at exercise. We’ve only got three two-year-olds, but one of them’s most promising.”
“Fine! After that I must go up and get a good, dirty job. I should like to stoke an engine. I’ve always wanted to know how stokers feel.”
“We’ll all go. We can stay with Val’s mother. It is so lovely to see you, Jon. Di
Jon lingered five minutes at his window. That orchard in full bloom—not mathematically planted, like his just-sold North Carolinian peach-trees—was as lovely as on that long-ago night when he chased Fleur therein. That was the beauty of England—nothing was pla