“What do YOU say, Mont?”
“Well, sir, if we won’t export children to the Colonies or speed up emigration somehow, there’s nothing for it but birth control. In the upper and middle classes we’re doing it all the time, and blinking the moral side, if there is one; and I really don’t see how we can insist on a moral side for those who haven’t a quarter of our excuse for having lots of children.”
“My dear Mont,” said the chairman, with a grin, “aren’t you cutting there at the basis of all privilege?”
“Very probably,” said Michael, with an answering grin. “I think, of course, that child emigration is much better, but nobody else does, apparently.”
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.”