Everybody knew that ‘young Mont’ had a ‘bee in his bonnet’ about child emigration, and there was little disposition to encourage it to buzz. And, since no one was more aware than Michael of being that crank in politics, one who thought you could not eat your cake and have it, he said no more. Presently, feeling that they would go round and round the mulberry bush for some time yet, and sit on the fence after, he excused himself and went away.
He found the address he wanted: “Miss June Forsyte, Poplar House, Chiswick,” and mounted a Hammersmith ‘bus.
How fast things seemed coming back to the normal! Extraordinarily difficult to upset anything so vast, intricate, and elastic as a nation’s life. The ‘bus swung along among countless vehicles and pedestrian myriads, and Michael realised how firm were those two elements of stability in the modern state, the common need for eating, drinking, and getting about; and the fact that so many people could drive cars. ‘Revolution?’ he thought: ‘There never was a time when it had less chance. Machinery’s dead agin it.’ Machinery belonged to the settled state of things, and every day saw its reinforcement. The unskilled multitude and the Communistic visionaries, their leaders, only had a chance now where machinery and means of communication were still undeveloped, as in Russia. Brains, ability, and technical skill were by nature on the side of capital and individual enterprise, and were gaining ever more power.
“Poplar House” took some finding, and, when found, was a little house supporting a large studio with a north light. It stood, behind two poplar trees, tall, thin, white, like a ghost. A foreign woman opened to him. Yes. Miss Forsyte was in the studio with Mr. Blade! Michael sent up his card, and waited in a draught, extremely ill at ease; for now that he was here he could not imagine why he had come. How to get the information he wanted without seeming to have come for it, passed his comprehension; for it was the sort of knowledge that could only be arrived at by crude questioning.
Finding that he was to go up, he went, perfecting his first lie. On entering the studio, a large room with green-canvassed walls, pictures hung or stacked, the usual dais, a top light half curtained, and some cats, he was conscious of a fluttering movement. A little light lady in flowing green, with short silver hair, had risen from a footstool, and was coming towards him.
“How do you do? You know Harold Blade, of course?”
The young man, at whose feet she had been sitting, rose and stood before Michael, square, somewhat lowering, with a dun-coloured complexion and heavily charged eyes.
“You must know his wonderful Rafaelite work.”
“Oh, yes!” said Michael, whose conscience was saying: “Oh, no!”
The young man said, grimly: “He doesn’t know me from Adam.”
“No, really,” muttered Michael. “But do tell me, why Rafaelite? I’ve always wanted to know.”
“Why?” exclaimed June. “Because he’s the only man who’s giving us the old values; he’s rediscovered them.”
“Forgive me, I’m such a dud in art matters—I thought the academicians were still in perspective!”
“THEY!” cried June, and Michael winced at the passion in the word. “Oh, well—if you still believe in them—”
“But I don’t,” said Michael.
“Harold is the only Rafaelite; people are grouping round him, of course, but he’ll be the last, too. It’s always like that. A great painter makes a school, but the schools never amount to anything.”
Michael looked with added interest at the first and last Rafaelite. He did not like the face, but it had a certain epileptic quality.
“Might I look round? Does my father-inlaw know your work, I wonder? He’s a great collector, and always on the look-out.”
“Soames!” said June, and again Michael winced. “He’ll be collecting Harold when we’re all dead. Look at that!”
Michael turned from the Rafaelite, who was shrugging his thick shoulders. He saw what was clearly a portrait of June. It was entirely recognisable, very smooth, all green and silver, with a suggestion of halo round the head.
“Pure primary line and colour—d’you think they’d hang THAT in the Academy?”
‘Seems to me exactly what they would hang,’ thought Michael, careful to keep the conclusion out of his face.
“I like the suggestion of a halo,” he murmured.
The Rafaelite uttered a short, sharp laugh.
“I’m going for a walk,” he said; “I’ll be in to supper. Good-bye!”
“Good-bye!” said Michael, with a certain relief.
“Of course,” said June when they were alone, “he’s the ONLY person who could paint Fleur. He’d get her modern look so perfectly. Would she sit to him? With everybody against him, you know, he has SUCH a struggle.”
“I’ll ask her. But do tell me—why is everybody against him?”
“Because he’s been through all these empty modern crazes, and come back to pure form and colour. They think he’s a traitor, and call him academic. It’s always the way when a man has the grit to fly against fashion and follow his own genius. I can see exactly what he’d do with Fleur. It would be a great chance for him, because he’s very proud, and this would be a proper commission from Soames. Splendid for her, too, of course. She ought to jump at it—in ten years’ time he’ll be THE man.”
Michael, who doubted if Fleur would “jump at it,” or Soames give the commission, replied cautiously: “I’ll sound her… By the way, your sister Holly and your young brother and his wife were lunching with us today.”
“Oh!” said June, “I haven’t seen Jon yet.” And, looking at Michael with her straight blue eyes, she added:
“Why did you come to see me?”
Under that challenging stare Michael’s diplomacy wilted.
“Well,” he said, “frankly, I want you to tell me why Fleur and your young brother came to an end with each other.”
“Sit down,” said June, and resting her pointed chin on her hand, she looked at him with eyes moving a little from side to side, as might a cat’s.
“I’m glad you asked me straight out; I hate people who beat about the bush. Don’t you know about Jon’s mother? She was Soames’ first wife, of course.”
“Oh!” said Michael.
“Irene,” and, as she spoke the name, Michael was aware of something deep and primitive stirring in that little figure. “Very beautiful—they didn’t get on; she left him—and years later she married my father, and Soames divorced her. I mean Soames divorced her and she married my father. They had Jon. And then, when Jon and Fleur fell in love, Irene and my father were terribly upset, and so was Soames—at least, he ought to have been.”
“And then?” asked Michael, for she was silent.
“The children were told; and my father died in the middle of it all; and Jon sacrificed himself and took his mother away, and Fleur married you.”
So that was it! In spite of the short, sharp method of the telling, he could feel tragic human emotion heavy in the tale. Poor little devils!
“I always thought it was too bad,” said June, suddenly. “Irene ought to have put up with it. Only—only—” and she stared at Michael, “they wouldn’t have been happy. Fleur’s too selfish. I expect she saw that.”
Michael raised an indignant voice.
“Yes,” said June; “you’re a good sort, I know—too good for her.”
“I’m not,” said Michael, sharply.
“Oh, yes, you are. She isn’t bad, but she’s a selfish little creature.”
“I wish you’d remember—”
“Sit down! Don’t mind what I say. I only speak the truth, you know. Of course, it was all horrible; Soames and my father were first cousins. And those children were awfully in love.”
Again Michael was conscious of the deep and private feeling within the little figure; conscious, too, of something deep and private stirring within himself.
“Painful!” he said.
“I don’t know,” June went on, abruptly, “I don’t know
; perhaps it was all for the best. You’re happy, aren’t you?”
With that pistol to his head, he stood and delivered.
“I am. But is she?”
The little green-and-silver figure straightened up. She caught his hand and gave it a squeeze. There was something almost terribly warmhearted about the action, and Michael was touched. He had only seen her twice before!
“After all, Jon’s married. What’s his wife like?”
“Looks charming—nice, I think.”
“An American!” said June, deeply. “Well, Fleur’s half French. I’m glad you’ve got a boy.”
Never had Michael known anyone whose words conveyed so much unintended potency of discomfort! Why was she glad he had a boy? Because it was an insurance—against what?
“Well,” he mumbled, “I’m very glad to know at last what it was all about.”
“You ought to have been told before; but you don’t know still. Nobody can know what family feuds and feelings are like, who hasn’t had them. Though I was angry about those children, I admit that. You see, I was the first to back Irene against Soames in the old days. I wanted her to leave him at the beginning of everything. She had a beastly time; he was such a—such a slug about his precious rights, and no proper pride either. Fancy forcing yourself on a woman who didn’t want you!”
“Ah!” Michael muttered. “Fancy!”
“People in the ‘eighties and ‘nineties didn’t understand how disgusting it was. Thank goodness, they do now!”
“Do they?” murmured Michael. “I wonder!”
“Of course they do.”
Michael sat corrected.
“Things are much better in that way than they were—not nearly so stuffy and farmyardy. I wonder Fleur hasn’t told you all about it.”
“She’s never said a word.”
“Oh!”
That sound was as discomforting as any of her more elaborate remarks. Clearly she was thinking what he himself was thinking: that it had gone too deep with Fleur to be spoken of. He was not even sure that Fleur knew whether he had ever heard of her affair with Jon.
And, with a sudden shrinking from any more discomforting sounds, he rose.
“Thanks awfully for telling me. I must buzz off now, I’m afraid.”
“I shall come and see Fleur about sitting to Harold. It’s too good a chance for him to miss. He simply must get commissions.”
“Of course!” said Michael; he could trust Fleur’s powers of refusal better than his own.
“Good-bye, then!”
But when he got to the door and looked back at her standing alone in that large room, he felt a pang—she seemed so light, so small, so flyaway, with her silver hair and her little intent face—still young from misjudged enthusiasm. He had got something out of her, too, left nothing with her; and he had stirred up some private feeling of her past, some feeling as strong, perhaps stronger, than his own.
She looked dashed lonely! He waved his hand to her.
Fleur had returned when he got home, and Michael realised suddenly, that in calling on June Forsyte he had done a thing inexplicable, save in relation to her and Jon!
‘I must write and ask that little lady not to mention it,’ he thought. To let Fleur know that he had been fussing about her past would never do.
“Had a good time?” he said.
“Very. Young Anne reminds me of Francis, except for her eyes.”
“Yes; I liked the looks of those two when I saw them at Mount Vernon. That was a queer meeting, wasn’t it?”
“The day father was unwell?”
He felt that she knew the meeting had been kept from her. If only he could talk to her freely; if only she would blurt out everything!
But all she said was: “I feel at a bad loose end, Michael, without the canteen.”
Chapter XIII.
SOAMES IN WAITING
To say that Soames preferred his house by the river when his wife was not there, would be a crude way of expressing a far from simple equation. He was glad to be still married to a handsome woman and very good housekeeper, who really could not help being French and twenty-five years younger than himself. But the fact was, that when she was away from him, he could see her good points so much better than when she was not. Though fond of mocking him in her French way, she had, he knew, lived into a certain regard for his comfort, and her own position as his wife. Affection? No, he did not suppose she had affection for him, but she liked her home, her bridge, her importance in the neighbourhood, and doing things about the house and garden. She was like a cat. And with money she was admirable—making it go further and buy more than most people. She was getting older, too, all the time, so that he had lost serious fear that she would overdo some friendship or other, and let him know it. That Prosper Profund business of six years ago, which had been such a squeak, had taught her discretion.
It had been quite unnecessary really for him to go down a day before Fleur’s arrival; his household ran on wheels too well geared and greased. On his fifteen acres, with the new dairy and cows across the river, he grew everything now except flour, fish, and meat of which he was but a sparing eater. Fifteen acres, if hardly “land,” represented a deal of produce. The establishment was, in fact, typical of countless residences of the unlanded well-to-do.
Soames had taste, and Annette, if anything, had more, especially in food, so that a better fed household could scarcely have been found.
In this bright weather, the leaves just full, the mayflower in bloom, bulbs not yet quite over, and the river relearning its summer smile, the beauty of the prospect was not to be sneezed at. And Soames on his green lawn walked a little and thought of why gardeners seemed always on the move from one place to another. He couldn’t seem to remember ever having seen an English gardener otherwise than about to work. That was, he supposed, why people so often had Scotch gardeners. Fleur’s dog came out and joined him. The fellow was getting old, and did little but attack imaginary fleas. Soames was very particular about real fleas, and the animal was washed so often that his skin had become very thin—a golden brown retriever, so rare that he was always taken for a mongrel. The head gardener came by with a spud in his hand.
“Good afternoon, sir.”
“Good afternoon,” replied Soames. “So the strike’s over!”
“Yes, sir. If they’d attend to their business, it’d be better.”
“It would. How’s your asparagus?”
“Well, I’m trying to make a third bed, but I can’t get the extra labour.”
Soames gazed at his gardener, who had a narrow face, rather on one side, owing to the growth of flowers. “What?” he said. “When there are about a million and a half people out of employment?”
“And where they get to, I can’t think,” said the gardener.
“Most of them,” said Soames, “are playing instruments in the streets.”
“That’s right, sir—my sister lives in London. I could get a boy, but I can’t trust him.”
“Why don’t you do it yourself?”
“Well, sir, I expect it’ll come to that; but I don’t want to let the garden down, you know.” And he moved the spud uneasily.
“What have you got that thing for? There isn’t a weed about the place.”
The gardener smiled. “It’s something cruel,” he said, “the way they spring up when you’re not about.”
“Mrs. Mont will be down tomorrow,” muttered Soames; “I shall want some good flowers in the house.”
“Very little at this time of year, sir.”
“I never knew a time of year when there was much. You must stir your stumps and find something.”
“Very good, sir,” said the gardener, and walked away.
‘Where’s he going now?’ thought Soames. ‘I never knew such a chap. But they’re all the same.’ He supposed they did work some time or other; in the small hours, perhaps—precious small hours! Anyway, he had to pay ’em a pretty penny for it! And, noticing the dog’s
head on one side, he said: “Want a walk?”
They went out of the gate together, away from the river. The birds were in varied song, and the cuckoos obstreperous.
They walked up to a bit of common land where there had been a conflagration in the exceptionally fine Easter weather. From there one could look down at the river winding among poplars and willows. The prospect was something like that in a long river landscape by Daubigny which he had seen in an American’s private collection—a very fine landscape, he never remembered seeing a finer. He could mark the smoke from his own kitchen chimney, and was more pleased than he would have been marking the smoke from any other. He had missed it a lot last year—all those months, mostly hot—touring the world with Fleur from one unhomelike place to another. Young Michael’s craze for emigration! Soames was Imperialist enough to see the point of it in theory; but in practice every place out of England seemed to him so raw, or so extravagant. An Englishman was entitled to the smoke of his own kitchen chimney. Look at the Ganges—monstrous great thing, compared with that winding silvery thread down there! The St. Lawrence, the Hudson, the PO-tomac—as he still called it in thought—had all pleased him, but, comparatively, they were sprawling pieces of water. And the people out there were a sprawling lot. They had to be, in those big places. He moved down from the common through a narrow bit of wood where rooks were in a state of some excitement. He knew little about the habits of birds, not detached enough from self for the study of creatures quite unconnected with him; but he supposed they would be holding a palaver about food—worm-currency would be depressed, or there had been some inflation or other—fussy as the French over their wretched franc. Emerging, he came down opposite the lock-keeper’s cottage. There, with the scent of the wood-smoke threading from its low and humble chimney, the weir murmuring, the blackbirds and the cuckoos calling, Soames experienced something like asphyxiation of the proprietary instincts. Opening the handle of his shooting-stick, he sat down on it, to contemplate the oozy green on the sides of the emptied lock and dabble one hand in the air. Ingenious things—locks! Why not locks in the insides of men and women, so that their passions could be damned to the proper moment, then used, under control, for the main traffic of life, instead of pouring to waste over weirs and down rapids? The tongue of Fleur’s dog licking his dabbled hand interrupted this somewhat philosophic reflection. Animals were too human nowadays, always wanting to have notice taken of them; only that afternoon he had seen Annette’s black cat look up into the plaster face of his Naples Psyche, and mew faintly—wanting to be taken up into its lap, he supposed—only the thing hadn’t one.
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