But she was startled. To see some one so old and calm wince as if struck, to hear so sharp a note of pain in his voice!
"Who told you that? If your aunt! I can't bear the affair talked of.""But, darling," said Fleur, softly, "it's so long ago.""Long ago or not, I...."Fleur stood stroking his arm.
"I've tried to forget," he said suddenly; "I don't wish to be reminded." And then, as if venting some long and secret irritation, he added: "In these days people don't understand. Grand passion, indeed! No one knows what it is.""I do," said Fleur, almost in a whisper.
Soames, who had turned his back on her, spun round.
"What are you talking of--a child like you!""Perhaps I've inherited it, Father.""What?"
"For her son, you see."
He was pale as a sheet, and she knew that she was as bad. They stood staring at each other in the steamy heat, redolent of the mushy scent of earth, of potted geranium, and of vines coming along fast.
"This is crazy," said Soames at last, between dry lips.
Scarcely moving her own, she murmured:
"Don't be angry, Father. I can't help it."But she could see he wasn't angry; only scared, deeply scared.
"I thought that foolishness," he stammered, "was all forgotten.""Oh, no! It's ten times what it was."Soames kicked at the hot-water pipe. The hapless movement touched her, who had no fear of her father--none.
"Dearest!" she said. "What must be, must, you know.""Must!" repeated Soames. "You don't know what you're talking of.
Has that boy been told?"
The blood rushed into her cheeks.
"Not yet."
He had turned from her again, and, with one shoulder a little raised, stood staring fixedly at a joint in the pipes.
"It's most distasteful to me," he said suddenly; "nothing could be more so. Son of that fellow! It's--it's--perverse!"She had noted, almost unconsciously, that he did not say "son of that woman," and again her intuition began working.
Did the ghost of that grand passion linger in some corner of his heart?
She slipped her hand under his arm.
"Jon's father is quite ill and old; I saw him.""You--?""Yes, I went there with Jon; I saw them both.""Well, and what did they say to you?""Nothing. They were very polite."
"They would be." He resumed his contemplation of the pipe-joint, and then said suddenly:
"I must think this over--I'll speak to you again to-night."She knew this was final for the moment, and stole away, leaving him still looking at the pipe-joint. She wandered into the fruit-garden, among the raspberry and currant bushes, without impetus to pick and eat. Two months ago--she was light-hearted! Even two days ago--light-hearted, before Prosper Profond told her. Now she felt tangled in a web-of passions, vested rights, oppressions and revolts, the ties of love and hate. At this dark moment of discouragement there seemed, even to her hold-fast nature, no way out. How deal with it--how sway and bend things to her will, and get her heart's desire?
And, suddenly, round the corner of the high box hedge, she came plump on her mother, walking swiftly, with an open letter in her hand. Her bosom was heaving, her eyes dilated, her cheeks flushed. Instantly Fleur thought: 'The yacht! Poor Mother!'
Annette gave her a wide startled look, and said:
"J'ai la migraine."
"I'm awfully sorry, Mother."
"Oh, yes! you and your father--sorry!"
"But, Mother--I am. I know what it feels like."Annette's startled eyes grew wide, till the whites showed above them.
"Poor innocent!" she said.
Her mother--so self-possessed, and commonsensical--to look and speak like this! It was all frightening! Her father, her mother, herself!
And only two months back they had seemed to have everything they wanted in this world.
Annette crumpled the letter in her hand. Fleur knew that she must ignore the sight.
"Can't I do anything for your head, Mother?"Annette shook that head and walked on, swaying her hips.
'It's cruel,' thought Fleur, 'and I was glad! That man! What do men come prowling for, disturbing everything! I suppose he's tired of her. What business has he to be tired of my mother? What business!'
And at that thought, so natural and so peculiar, she uttered a little choked laugh.
She ought, of course, to be delighted, but what was there to be delighted at? Her father didn't really care! Her mother did, perhaps? She entered the orchard, and sat down under a cherry-tree.
A breeze sighed in the higher boughs; the sky seen through their green was very blue and very white in cloud--those heavy white clouds almost always present in river landscape. Bees, sheltering out of the wind, hummed softly, and over the lush grass fell the thick shade from those fruit-trees planted by her father five-and-twenty, years ago. Birds were almost silent, the cuckoos had ceased to sing, but wood-pigeons were cooing. The breath and drone and cooing of high summer were not for long a sedative to her excited nerves. Crouched over her knees she began to scheme. Her father must be made to back her up. Why should he mind so long as she was happy? She had not lived for nearly nineteen years without knowing that her future was all he really cared about. She had, then, only to convince him that her future could not be happy without Jon. He thought it a mad fancy. How foolish the old were, thinking they could tell what the young felt! Had not he confessed that he--when young--had loved with a grand passion? He ought to understand! 'He piles up his money for me,' she thought; 'but what's the use, if I'm not going to be happy?'