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.