RICHMOND PARK
On the afternoon that Soames crossed to France a cablegram was received by Jolyon at Robin Hill:
"Your son down with enteric no immediate danger will cable again."It reached a household already agitated by the imminent departure of June,whose berth was booked for the following day.She was,indeed,in the act of confiding Eric Cobbley and his family to her father's care when the message arrived.
The resolution to become a Red Cross nurse,taken under stimulus of Jolly's enlistment,had been loyally fulfilled with the irritation and regret which all Forsytes feel at what curtails their individual liberties.Enthusiastic at first about the 'wonderfulness'of the work,she had begun after a month to feel that she could train herself so much better 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 children,adrift in the cold waters of an unappreciative world weighed on her so that she was still in danger of backing out.The reading of that cablegram,with its disquieting reality,clinched the matter.
She saw herself already nursing Jolly--for of course they would let her nurse her own brother!Jolyon--ever wide and doubtful--had no such hope.Poor June!
Could any Forsyte of her generation grasp how rude and brutal life was?Ever since he knew of his boy's arrival at Cape Town the thought of him had been a kind of recurrent sickness in Jolyon.He could not get reconciled to the feeling that Jolly was in danger all the time.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?The un-Forsytean selfsacrifice of his three children,indeed,had quite bewildered Jolyon.He would eagerly change places with Jolly,because he loved his boy;but no such personal motive was influencing them.He could only think that it marked the decline of the Forsyte type.
Late that afternoon Holly came out to him under the old oak-tree.
She had grown up very much during these last months of hospital training away from home.And,seeing her approach,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 this,'thought Jolyon,'as much as I'and,seeing her eyes fixed on him,he said:"Don't take it to heart too much,my child.If he weren't ill,he might be in much greater danger."Holly got out of the swing.
"I want to tell you something,Dad.It was through me that Jolly enlisted and went out.""How's that?"
"When you were away in Paris,Val Dartie and I fell in love.We used to ride in Richmond Park;we got engaged.Jolly 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 out too.Because if anything happens to either of them I should feel awful.Besides,I'm just as much trained as June."Jolyon gazed at her in a stupefaction that was tinged with irony.
So this was the answer to the riddle he had been asking himself;and his three children were Forsytes after all.Surely Holly might have 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.Engaged!So this was why he had so lost touch with her!
And to young Val Dartie--nephew of Soames--in the other camp!It was all terribly distasteful.He closed his easel,and set his drawing against the tree.
"Have you told June?"
"Yes;she says she'll get me into her cabin somehow.It's a single cabin;but one of us could sleep on the floor.If you consent,she'll go up now and get permission."'Consent?'thought Jolyon.'Rather late in the day to ask for that!'But again he checked himself.
"You're too young,my dear;they won't let you.""June knows some people that she helped to go to Cape Town.If they won't let me nurse yet,I could stay with them and go on training there.Let me go,Dad!"Jolyon smiled because he could have cried.
"I never stop anyone from doing anything,"he said.
Holly flung her arms round his neck.
"Oh!Dad,you are the best in the world."
'That means the worst,'thought Jolyon.If he had ever doubted his creed of tolerance he did so then.
"I'm not friendly with Val's family,"he said,"and I don't know Val,but Jolly didn't like him."Holly looked at the distance and said:
"I love him."
"That settles it,"said Jolyon dryly,then catching the expression on her face,he kissed her,with the thought:'Is anything more pathetic than the faith of the young?'Unless he actually forbade her going it was obvious 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 to share the single cabin.He took them to Surbiton station the following evening,and they duly slid away from him,provided with money,invalid foods,and those letters of credit without which Forsytes do not travel.