The Forsyte Saga - Volume 3

"Yes, it's me."

She moved over to the bed, and sat down on it, quite close to him, her

hands still clasping her breast, her feet among the sheets of the letter

which had slipped to the floor. She saw them, and her hands grasped the

edge of the bed. She sat very upright, her dark eyes fixed on him. At

last she spoke.

"Well, Jon, you know, I see."

"Yes."

"You've seen Father?"

"Yes."

There was a long silence, till she said:

"Oh! my darling!"

"It's all right." The emotions in him were so, violent and so mixed that

he dared not move--resentment, despair, and yet a strange yearning for

the comfort of her hand on his forehead.

"What are you going to do?"

"I don't know."

There was another long silence, then she got up. She stood a moment,

very still, made a little movement with her hand, and said: "My darling

boy, my most darling boy, don't think of me--think of yourself," and,

passing round the foot of the bed, went back into her room.

Jon turned--curled into a sort of ball, as might a hedgehog--into the

corner made by the two walls.

He must have been twenty minutes there before a cry roused him. It came

from the terrace below. He got up, scared. Again came the cry: "Jon!"

His mother was calling! He ran out and down the stairs, through the

empty dining-room into the study. She was kneeling before the old

armchair, and his father was lying back quite white, his head on his

breast, one of his hands resting on an open book, with a pencil clutched

in it--more strangely still than anything he had ever seen. She looked

round wildly, and said:

"Oh! Jon--he's dead--he's dead!"

Jon flung himself down, and reaching over the arm of the chair, where

he had lately been sitting, put his lips to the forehead. Icy cold! How

could--how could Dad be dead, when only an hour ago--! His mother's arms

were round the knees; pressing her breast against them. "Why--why

wasn't I with him?" he heard her whisper. Then he saw the tottering word

"Irene" pencilled on the open page, and broke down himself. It was his

first sight of human death, and its unutterable stillness blotted from

him all other emotion; all else, then, was but preliminary to this! All

love and life, and joy, anxiety, and sorrow, all movement, light and

beauty, but a beginning to this terrible white stillness. It made a

dreadful mark on him; all seemed suddenly little, futile, short. He

mastered himself at last, got up, and raised her.