I don't think harshly of him. I have long been sorry for him;perhaps I was sorry even then. As the world judges she was in error, he within his rights. He loved her--in his way. She was his property. That is the view he holds of life--of human feelings and hearts--property. It's not his fault--so was he born. To me it is a view that has always been abhorrent--so was I born! Knowing you as Ido, I feel it cannot be otherwise than abhorrent to you. Let me go on with the story. Your mother fled from his house that night; for twelve years she lived quietly alone without companionship of any sort, until in 1899 her husband--you see, he was still her husband, for he did not attempt to divorce her, and she of course had no right to divorce him--became conscious, it seems, of the want of children, and commenced a long attempt to induce her to go back to him and give him a child. I was her trustee then, under your Grandfather's Will, and I watched this going on. While watching, I became attached to her, devotedly attached. His pressure increased, till one day she came to me here and practically put herself under my protection. Her husband, who was kept informed of all her movements, attempted to force us apart by bringing a divorce suit, or possibly he really meant it, I don't know; but anyway our names were publicly joined.
That decided us, and we became united in fact. She was divorced, married me, and you were born. We have lived in perfect happiness, at least I have, and I believe your mother also. Soames, soon after the divorce, married Fleur's mother, and she was born. That is the story, Jon. I have told it you, because by the affection which we see you have formed for this man's daughter you are blindly moving toward what must utterly destroy your mother's happiness, if not your own. I don't wish to speak of myself, because at my age there's no use supposing I shall cumber the ground much longer, besides, what Ishould suffer would be mainly on her account, and on yours. But what I want you to realise is that feelings of horror and aversion such as those can never be buried or forgotten. They are alive in her to-day.
Only yesterday at Lord's we happened to see Soames Forsyte. Her face, if you had seen it, would have convinced you. The idea that you should marry his daughter is a nightmare to her, Jon. I have nothing to say against Fleur save that she is his daughter. But your children, if you married her, would be the grandchildren of Soames, as much as of your mother, of a man who once owned your mother as a man might own a slave. Think what that would mean. By such a marriage you enter the camp which held your mother prisoner and wherein she ate her heart out. You are just on the threshold of life, you have only known this girl two months, and however deeply you think you love her, I appeal to you to break it off at once.
Don't give your mother this rankling pain and humiliation during the rest of her life. Young though she will always seem to me, she is fifty-seven. Except for us two she has no one in the world. She will soon have only you. Pluck up your spirit, Jon, and break away.
Don't put this cloud and barrier between you. Don't break her heart!
Bless you, my dear boy, and again forgive me for all the pain this letter must bring you--we tried to spare it you, but Spain--it seems---was no good.
"Ever your devoted father "JOLYON FORSYTE."Having finished his confession, Jolyon sat with a thin cheek on his hand, re-reading. There were things in it which hurt him so much, when he thought of Jon reading them, that he nearly tore the letter up. To speak of such things at all to a boy--his own boy--to speak of them in relation to his own wife and the boy's own mother, seemed dreadful to the reticence of his Forsyte soul. And yet without speaking of them how make Jon understand the reality, the deep cleavage, the ineffaceable scar? Without them, how justify this stiffing of the boy's love? He might just as well not write at all!
He folded the confession, and put it in his pocket. It was--thank Heaven!--Saturday; he had till Sunday evening to think it over; for even if posted now it could not reach Jon till Monday. He felt a curious relief at this delay, and at the fact that, whether sent or not, it was written.
In the rose garden, which had taken the place of the old fernery, he could see Irene snipping and pruning, with a little basket on her arm. She was never idle, it seemed to him, and he envied her now that he himself was idle nearly all his time. He went down to her.
She held up a stained glove and smiled. A piece of lace tied under her chin concealed her hair, and her oval face with its still dark brows looked very young.
"The green-fly are awful this year, and yet it's cold. You look tired, Jolyon."Jolyon took the confession from his pocket. "I've been writing this.
I think you ought to see it?"
"To Jon?" Her whole face had changed, in that instant, becoming almost haggard.
"Yes; the murder's out."
He gave it to her, and walked away among the roses. Presently, seeing that she had finished reading and was standing quite still with the sheets of the letter against her skirt, he came back to her.
"Well?"
"It's wonderfully put. I don't see how it could be put better.
Thank you, dear."
"Is there anything you would like left out?"She shook her head.
"No; he must know all, if he's to understand.""That's what I thought, but--I hate it!"He had the feeling that he hated it more than she--to him sex was so much easier to mention between man and woman than between man and man; and she had always been more natural and frank, not deeply secretive like his Forsyte self.
"I wonder if he will understand, even now, Jolyon? He's so young;and he shrinks from the physical.""He gets that shrinking from my father, he was as fastidious as a girl in all such matters. Would it be better to rewrite the whole thing, and just say you hated Soames?"Irene shook her head.
