”
The room into which they were ushered was evidently accustomed to this sort of thing, for, while there was nothing that anyone could take away, there were chairs in which it was possible to be quite comfortable, and some valuable but large pictures and busts.
Sir Lawrence was examining a bust, and Michael a picture, when the door was opened, and a voice said: “Yes, gentlemen?”
Mr. Montross was of short stature, and somewhat like a thin walrus who had once been dark but had gone grey; his features were slightly aquiline, he had melancholy brown eyes, and big drooping grizzly moustaches and eyebrows.
“We were advised to come to you, sir,” began Michael at once, “by your neighbour, the Marquess of Shropshire. We’re trying to form a committee to issue an appeal for a national fund to convert the slums.” And for the third time he plunged into detail.
“And why do you come to ME, gentlemen?” said Mr. Montross, when he had finished.
Michael subdued a stammer.
“Because of your wealth, sir,” he said, simply.
“Good!” said Mr. Montross. “You see, I began in the slums, Mr. Mont–is it? – yes, Mr. Mont–I began there–I know a lot about those people, you know. I thought perhaps you came to me because of that.”
“Splendid, sir,” said Michael, “but of course we hadn’t an idea.”
“Well, those people are born without a future.”
“That’s just what we’re out to rectify, sir.”
“Take them away from their streets and put them in a new country, then–perhaps; but leave them to their streets–” Mr. Montross shook his head. “I know them, you see, Mr. Mont; if these people thought about the future, they could not go on living. And if you do not think about the future, you cannot have one.”
“How about yourself?” said Sir Lawrence. Mr. Montross turned his gaze from Michael to the cards in his hand, then raised his melancholy eyes.
“Sir Lawrence Mont, isn’t it? – I am a Jew–that is different. A Jew will rise from any beginnings, if he is a real Jew. The reason the Polish and the Russian Jews do not rise so easily you can see from their faces–they have too much Slav or Mongol blood. The pure Jew like me rises.”
Sir Lawrence and Michael exchanged a glance. “We like this fellow,” it seemed to say.
“I was a poor boy in a bad slum,” went on Mr. Montross, intercepting the glance, “and I am now–well, a millionaire; but I have not become that, you know, by throwing away my money. I like to help people that will help themselves.”
“Then,” said Michael, with a sigh, “there’s nothing in this scheme that appeals to you, sir?”
“I will ask my wife,” answered Mr. Montross, also with a sigh. “Good-night, gentlemen. Let me write to you.”
The two Monts moved slowly towards Mount Street in the last of the twilight.
“Well?” said Michael.
Sir Lawrence cocked his eyebrow.
“An honest man,” he said; “it’s fortunate for us he has a wife.”
“You mean–?”
“The potential Lady Montross will bring him in. There was no other reason why he should ask her. That makes four, and Sir Timothy’s a ‘sitter’; slum landlords are his betes noires. We only want three more. A bishop one can always get, but I’ve forgotten which it is for the moment; we MUST have a big doctor, and we ought to have a banker, but perhaps your uncle, Lionel Charwell, will do; he knows all about the shady side of finance in the courts, and we could make Alison work for us. And now, my dear, good-night! I don’t know when I’ve felt more tired.”
They parted at the corner, and Michael walked towards Westminster. He passed under the spikes of Buckingham Palace Gardens, and along the stables leading to Victoria Street. All this part had some very nice slums, though of late he knew the authorities had been ‘going for them.’ He passed an area where they had ‘gone’ for them to the extent of pulling down a congery of old houses. Michael stared up at the remnants of walls mosaicked by the unstripped wall papers. What had happened to the tribe outdriven from these ruins; whereto had they taken the tragic lives of which they made such cheerful comedy? He came to the broad river of Victoria Street and crossed it, and, taking a route that he knew was to be avoided, he was soon where women encrusted with age sat on doorsteps for a breath of air, and little alleys led off to unplumbed depths. Michael plumbed them in fancy, not in fact. He stood quite a while at the end of one, trying to imagine what it must be like to live there. Not succeeding, he walked briskly on, and turned into his own square, and to his own habitat with its bay-treed tubs, its Danish roof, and almost hopeless cleanliness. And he suffered from the feeling which besets those who are sensitive about their luck.
‘Fleur would say,’ he thought, perching on the coat-sarcophagus, for he, too, was tired, ‘that those people having no aesthetic sense and no tradition to wash up to, are at least as happy as we are. She’d say that they get as much pleasure out of living from hand to mouth (and not too much mouth), as we do from baths, jazz, poetry and cocktails; and she’s generally right.’ Only, what a confession of defeat! If that were really so, to what end were they all dancing? If life with bugs and flies were as good as life without bugs and flies, why Keating’s powder and all the other aspirations of the poets? Blake’s New Jerusalem was, surely, based on Keating, and Keating was based on a sensitive skin. To say, then, that civilisation was skin-deep, wasn’t cynical at all. People possibly had souls, but they certainly had skins, and progress was real only if thought of in terms of skin!
So ran the thoughts of Michael, perched on the coat-sarcophagus; and meditating on Fleur’s skin, so clear and smooth, he went upstairs.
She had just had her final bath, and was standing at her bedroom window. Thinking of–what? The moon over the square?
“Poor prisoner!” he said, and put his arm round her.
“What a queer sound the town makes at night, Michael. And, if you think, it’s made up of the seven million separate sounds of people going their own separate ways.”
“And yet–the whole lot are going one way.”
“We’re not going any way,” said Fleur, “there’s only pace.”
“There must be direction, my child, underneath.”
“Oh! Of course, change.”
“For better or worse; but that’s direction in itself.”
“Perhaps only to the edge, and over we go.”
“Gadarene swine!”
“Well, why not?”
“I admit,” said Michael unhappily, “it’s all hair-triggerish; but there’s always common-sense.”
“Common-sense–in face of passions!”
Michael slackened his embrace. “I thought you were always on the side of common-sense. Passion? The passion to have? Or the passion to know?”
“Both,” said Fleur. “That’s the present age, and I’m a child of it. You’re not, you know, Michael.”
“Query!” said Michael, letting go of her waist. “But if you want to have or know anything in particular, Fleur, I’d like to be told.”
There was a moment of stillness, before he felt her arm slipping through his, and her lips against his ear.
“Only the moon, my dear. Let’s go to bed.”
Chapter VII.
TWO VISITS
On the very day that Fleur was freed from her nursing she received a visit from the last person in her thoughts. If she had not altogether forgotten the existence of one indelibly associated with her wedding-day, she had never expected to see her again. To hear the words: “Miss June Forsyte, ma’am,” and find her in front of the Fragonard, was like experiencing a very slight earthquake.
The silvery little figure had turned at her entrance, extending a hand clad in a fabric glove.
“It’s a flimsy school, that,” she said, pointing her chin at the Fragonard; “but I like your room. Harold Blade’s pictures would look splendid here. Do you know his work?”
Fleur shook her head.
“Oh! I should have thought any–” The little lady stopped, as if she had seen a brink.
“Won’t you sit down?” said Fleur. “Have you still got your gallery off Cork Street?”
“That? Oh, no! It was a hopeless place. I sold it for half what my father gave for it.”
“And what became of that Polo–American–Boris Strumo something–you were so interested in?”
“He! Oh! Gone to pieces utterly. Married, and does purely commercial work. He gets big prices for his things–no good at all. So Jon and his wife–” Again she stopped, and Fleur tried to see the edge from which she had saved her foot.
“Yes,” she said, looking steadily into June’s eyes, which were moving from side to side, “Jon seems to have abandoned America for good. I can’t see his wife being happy over here.”
“Ah!” said June. “Holly told me you went to America, yourself. Did you see Jon over there?”
“Not quite.”
“Did you like America?”
“It’s very stimulating.”
June sniffed.
“Do they buy pictures? I mean, do you think there’d be a chance for Harold Blade’s work there?”
“Without knowing the work–”
“Of course, I forgot; it seems so impossible that you don’t know it.”
She leaned towards Fleur and her eyes shone.
“I do so want you to sit to him, you know; he’d make such a wonderful picture of you. Your father simply must arrange that. With your position in Society, Fleur, especially after that case last year,”–Fleur winced, if imperceptibly–“it would be the making of poor Harold. He’s such a genius,” she added, frowning; “you MUST come and see his work.”
“I should like to,” said Fleur. “Have you seen Jon yet?”
“No. They’re coming on Friday. I hope I shall like her. As a rule, I like all foreigners, except the Americans and the French.
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60