Jon

“ Well, of course, Jon didn't understand that crazy stuff any more than I did. He goes straight back to the love.
"Evelyn," says Jon, desperate, "it must be more! You must marry me."
Then, even in the night, I could see the hardness come into her face, and when she spoke it cut through her voice like iron.
"Would you like to know what my heart is full of at this moment?" she says.
"Yes," says Jon, thinking maybe, that it was something about him.
"Murder!" says Evelyn.
"No, no," says Jonathan, "not in that heart. It is made to be filled with love. Nothing else." ”

“ For the first time in his life Jon seemed glad not to have Dave about. And he had a wild look about the eyes that I had never seen on Jon.
He went out and told Evelyn not to wait for Dave, that he had gone to bed.
"Yi—you didn't tell him?" I heard her shriek, "You didn't?—He didn't guess it?"
"He had gone some time before I went in," Jon said. "Come! We will meet in the morning! Come."
Jon dragged her in and she flew off to bed like a troubled spirit.
"Come, Jonthy," says I, "let's sleep—if we can. Seems to me that we're all crazy in one way or another, to-night." ”

“ When, at some jolt, the young man's arm touched hers as if by accident, she only thought: 'If that were Jon's arm!' When his cheerful voice, tempered by her proximity, murmured above the sound of the car's progress, she smiled and answered, thinking: 'If that were Jon's voice!' and when once he said: "Fleur, you look a perfect angel in that dress!" she answered: "Oh, do you like it?" thinking: 'If only Jon could see it!'
During this drive she took a resolution. She would go to Robin Hill and see him—alone; she would take the car, without word beforehand to him or to her father. ”

“ Even my emotions, which before I prided myself in keeping so carefully concealed, crash from my grip. Jon, too, is no longer in my grasp. He has grown more confident and self-assured, and I like what I see... but I feel as if he's no longer in my league... as if I'm trying to love a diamond when I know full well that I can afford only glass. It's never easy to lose status. I've lost so much that only a miracle of nature could allow me to recover my low self-worth. Jon deserves so much, and he has "the right stuff." ”

“ Jon gave the word to fall in—four ranks—and that looked so much like going, at last, that the cheering stopped, and after a silent solemn moment we were swamped by women. Every man had at least one woman hanging on him and crying—except just Jon and me. ”

“ He lived a life of the most violent action.
“Jon,” said his father to his mother, under the oak tree, “is terrible. I'm afraid he's going to turn out a sailor, or something hopeless. Do you see any sign of his appreciating beauty?”
“Not the faintest.”
“Well, thank heaven he's no turn for wheels or engines! I can bear anything but that. But I wish he'd take more interest in Nature.”
“He's imaginative, Jolyon.”
“Yes, in a sanguinary way. Does he love anyone just now?”
“No; only everyone. There never was anyone born more loving or more lovable than Jon.”
“Being your boy, Irene.” ”

“ With relief, and a high colour, Jon answered:
“Oh! awfully jolly, Mum.”
Her arm pressed his.
Jon had never loved her so much as in that minute which seemed to falsify Fleur's fears and to release his soul. He turned to look at her, but something in her smiling face—something which only he perhaps would have caught—stopped the words bubbling up in him. Could fear go with a smile? If so, there was fear in her face. And out of Jon tumbled quite other words, about farming, Holly, and the Downs. Talking fast, he waited for her to come back to Fleur. But she did not. ”

“ Enough has been said about Jon Forsyte here and in another place to show what long marches lay between him and his great-great-grandfather, the first Jolyon, in Dorset down by the sea. Jon was sensitive as a girl, more sensitive than nine out of ten girls of the day; imaginative as one of his half-sister June's "lame duck" painters; affectionate as a son of his father and his mother naturally would be. And yet, in his inner tissue, there was something of the old founder of his family, a secret tenacity of soul, a dread of showing his feelings, a determination not to know when he was beaten. ”

“ People always accepted an accomplished fact, in time! From that piece of philosophy—profound enough at her age—she passed to another consideration less philosophic. If she persuaded Jon to a quick and secret marriage, and he found out afterwards that she had known the truth! What then? Jon hated subterfuge. Again, then, would it not be better to tell him? But the memory of his mother's face kept intruding on that impulse. Fleur was afraid. His mother had power over him; more power perhaps than she herself. ”

“ Jon stammered: "Feud? Why?"
"It's ever so romantic and silly? That's why I pretended we hadn't met. Shall we get up early to-morrow morning and go for a walk before breakfast and have it out? I hate being slow about things, don't you?"
Jon murmured a rapturous assent.
"Six o'clock, then. I think your mother's beautiful."
Jon said fervently: "Yes, she is."
"I love all kinds of beauty," went on Fleur, "when it's exciting. I don't like Greek things a bit."
"What! Not Euripides?"
"Euripides? Oh! no, I can't bear Greek plays; they're so long. I think beauty's always swift. ”

“ Fleur laughed.
“We're absurdly young. And love's young dream is out of date, Jon. Besides, it's awfully wasteful. Think of all the fun you might have. You haven't begun, even; it's a shame, really. And there's me. I wonder!”
Confusion came on Jon's spirit. How could she say such things just as they were going to part?
“If you feel like that,” he said, “I can't go. I shall tell Mother that I ought to try and work. There's always the condition of the world!” ”

“ Jon heard her uneasily. Did she understand? But he felt once more that he was no match for her in self-control and subtlety. She could, in some supersensitive way, of which he had not the secret, feel the pulse of his thoughts; she knew by instinct what he hoped and feared and wished. It made him terribly uncomfortable and guilty, having, beyond most boys, a conscience. He wished she would be frank with him, he almost hoped for an open struggle. But none came, and steadily, silently, they travelled north. Thus did he first learn how much better than men women play a waiting game. ”

“ His mother got up, and sat beside him. “You do, every day. The sky is beautiful, the stars, and moonlit nights, and then the birds, the flowers, the trees—they're all beautiful. Look out of the window—there's beauty for you, Jon.” ”

“ Fleur slipped her little finger into his palm:
"You have no instinct, Jon; you must leave things to me. It's serious about our people. We've simply got to be secret at present, if we want to be together." The door was opened, and she added loudly: "You are a duffer, Jon." ”

“ He doesn't seem ever to have heard of me."
"You will explain yourself—just a look at you!" says Jon. "But, I will tell Dave a few things. Dave and me are very good friends."
"He can't be as dear and sweet as you, Jonthy!" she says, leaning up against old Jonathan.
And Jon, when she done that, the holiness came into his face. I might as well have been a thousand miles away. Jon was in a country where I couldn't follow.
But I don't let no one lose me that way. So I broke in:
"How did you get here, anyhow, Evelyn,—without being injured? You are afraid of cows, and you can't climb no fences. ”

“ Watching her lips that wore a little drawn smile, Jolyon said quietly:
“You had better let me tell him, and have done with it. After all, Jon has the instincts of a gentleman. He has only to understand—”
“Only! He can't understand; that's impossible.”
“I believe I could have at his age.”
Irene caught his hand. “You were always more of a realist than Jon; and never so innocent.”
“That's true,” said Jolyon. “It's queer, isn't it? You and I would tell our stories to the world without a particle of shame; but our own boy stumps us.” ”

“ The Austrian admitted her to the "little meal-room." Now that she knew what she and Jon were up against, her longing for him had increased tenfold, as if he were a toy with sharp edges or dangerous paint such as they had tried to take from her as a child. If she could not have her way, and get Jon for good and all, she felt like dying of privation. By hook or crook she must and would get him! A round dim mirror of very old glass hung over the pink brick hearth. She stood looking at herself reflected in it, pale, and rather dark under the eyes; little shudders kept passing through her nerves. ”

“ By the time they've done expecting, one's as good as dead."
"Yes," muttered Jon, "life's beastly short. One wants to live forever, and know everything."
"And love everybody?"
"No," cried Jon; "I only want to love once—you."
"Indeed! You're coming on! Oh! Look! There's the chalk-pit; we can't be very far now. Let's run."
Jon followed, wondering fearfully if he had offended her.
The chalk-pit was full of sunshine and the murmuration of bees. Fleur flung back her hair.
"Well," she said, "in case of accidents, you may give me one kiss, Jon," and she pushed her cheek forward. ”

“ And I saw that this, hard as it was for old Jon, was best—even for him. Yes, love is selfish. They didn't notice.
Finally, Jon was in the fields or the barn all the time and we saw almost nothing of him. I would take most of his meals out to him. And according to Jon, so that he might not disturb the rest of us, he would often stop at the barn and sleep with the hireland. At last he slept in the barn all the time—just, I think, so that Dave could be in his bed, and near Evelyn. At first I could hardly believe that Dave would let it go at that. ”

“ They were talking of the Gallery off Cork Street.
"We back-numbers," his father was saying, "are awfully anxious to find out why we can't appreciate the new stuff; you and Jon must tell us."
"It's supposed to be satiric, isn't it?" said Fleur.
He saw his father's smile.
"Satiric? Oh! I think it's more than that. What do you say, Jon?"
"I don't know at all," stammered Jon. His father's face had a sudden grimness.
"The young are tired of us, our gods and our ideals. Off with their heads, they say—smash their idols! And let's get back to—nothing! And, by Jove, they've done it! ”

“ That's how this night's work has turned the matter!"
"But," says Jon, "we don't know him—where to find him—who he is. He doesn't exist, as far as we know. Yet, they know he does. If he could be found—I'd kill him! And send them his body. He wouldn't have to enlist."
"He deserves that," says I, "a man that is too cowardly to shoulder his own deeds, but puts 'em on some one else! I wish, too, that I'd come across him with a gun in my hands!"
"Dear daddy," says Evelyn, more quiet now, and slow and solemn, "the time is at hand—you have brought it to-night—for you and your gun—and Mallory! ”

“ Then Jon says, soft as praying:
"Yes. I wish I were a woman. There is nothing on the earth so beautiful!"
Now, what do you think of that! A man wishing he was a woman!
"Jonathan," I says, "don't be foolish. There must be men and women. Be glad to be what you are."
And, it was about the first time I ever knew Dave to be speechless. He didn't say a word. Just put his lips down on Evelyn's, slow and soft, and let them stay there a long time. After all, I suppose he wasn't as speechless as I thought. I expect he said more than either Jon or me. ”

“ Then, ringing for tea, he went out to have it under the old oak-tree.
All are under sentence of death; Jolyon, whose sentence was but a little more precise and pressing, had become so used to it that he thought habitually, like other people, of other things. He thought of his son now.
Jon was nineteen that day, and Jon had come of late to a decision. ”

“ Jolyon drew a long breath, and said:
"I've often wondered whether we've been right to keep it from him. He'll find out some day."
"The later the better, Jolyon; the young have such cheap, hard judgment. When you were nineteen what would you have thought of your mother if she had done what I have?"
Yes! There it was! Jon worshipped his mother; and knew nothing of the tragedies, the inexorable necessities of life, nothing of the prisoned grief in an unhappy marriage, nothing of jealousy or passion—knew nothing at all, as yet! ”

“ They were the fellows! 'I've made nothing that will live!' thought Jolyon; 'I've been an amateur—a mere lover, not a creator. Still, I shall leave Jon behind me when I go.' What luck that the boy had not been caught by that ghastly war! He might so easily have been killed, like poor Jolly twenty years ago out in the Transvaal. Jon would do something some day—if the Age didn't spoil him—an imaginative chap! His whim to take up farming was but a bit of sentiment, and about as likely to last. And just then he saw them coming up the field: Irene and the boy ”

“ We mustn't own anything nowadays, not even our feelings. They stand in the way of—Nothing."
Jon listened, bewildered, almost outraged by his father's words, behind which he felt a meaning that he could not reach. He didn't want to stamp on anything!
"Nothing's the god of to-day," continued Jolyon; "we're back where the Russians were sixty years ago, when they started Nihilism."
"No, Dad," cried Jon suddenly; "we only want to LIVE, and we don't know how, because of the Past—that's all!"
"By George!" said Jolyon, "that's profound, Jon. Is it your own? The Past! ”