“If there’s a Harrow to go to by the time he’s of age.”
“Don’t be foolish. No constellations are more fixed than the public schools. Look at the way they flourished on the war.”
“They won’t flourish on the next war.”
“There mustn’t be one, then.”
“Under ‘pukka sahibism’ it couldn’t be avoided.”
“My dear, you don’t suppose that keeping our word and all that was not just varnish? We simply feared German preponderance.”
Michael rumpled his hair.
“It was a good instance, anyway, of what I said about there being more things in Heaven and earth than are dreamed of by the ‘pukka sahib’; yes, and of many situations that he’s not adequate to handle.”
Fleur yawned.
“We badly want a new dinner service, Michael.”
CHAPTER 10
After dinner Michael set forth, without saying where he was going. Since the death of his father-inlaw, and the disclosure then made to him about Fleur and John Forsyte, his relations with her had been the same, with a slight but deep difference. He was no longer a tied but a free agent in his own house. Not a word had ever been spoken between them on a matter now nearly four years old, nor had there been in his mind any doubt about her since; the infidelity was scotched and buried. But, though outwardly the same, he was inwardly emancipated, and she knew it. In this matter of Wilfrid, for instance, his father’s warning had not been needed. He would not have told her of it, anyway. Not because he did not trust her discretion—he could always trust that—but because he secretly felt that in a matter such as this he would not get any real help from her.
He walked, ‘Wilfrid’s in love,’ he thought, ‘so he ought to be in by ten, unless he’s got an attack of verse; but even then you can’t write poetry in this traffic or in a club, the atmosphere stops the flow.’ He crossed Pall Mall and threaded the maze of narrow streets dedicated to unattached manhood till he came to Piccadilly, quiet before its storm of after-theatre traffic. Passing up a side street devoted to those male ministering angels—tailors, bookmakers and moneylenders—he rounded into Cork Street. It was ten o’clock exactly when he paused before the well-remembered house. Opposite was the gallery where he had first met Fleur, and he stood for a moment almost dizzy from past feelings. For three years, before Wilfrid’s queer infatuation for Fleur had broken it all up, he had been Wilfrid’s fidus Achates. ‘Regular David and Jonathan stunt,’ he thought, and all his old feelings came welling up as he ascended the stairs.
The monastic visage of the henchman Stack relaxed at sight of him.
“Mr. Mont? Pleasure to see you, sir.”
“And how are you, Stack?”
“A little older, sir; otherwise in fine shape, thank you. Mr. Desert IS in.”
Michael resigned his hat, and entered.
Wilfrid, lying on the divan in a dark dressing-gown, sat up.
“Hallo!”
“How are you, Wilfrid?”
“Stack! Drinks!”
“Congratulations, old man!”
“I met her first at your wedding, you know.”
“Ten years ago, nearly. You’ve plucked the flower of our family, Wilfrid; we’re all in love with Dinny.”
“I won’t talk about her, but I think the more.”
“Any verse, old man?”
“Yes, a booklet going in tomorrow, same publisher. Remember the first?”
“Don’t I? My only scoop.”
“This is better. There’s one that IS a poem.”
Stack re-entered with a tray.
“Help yourself, Michael.”
Michael poured out a little brandy and diluted it but slightly. Then with a cigarette he sat down.
“When’s it to be?”
“Registrar’s, as soon as possible.”
“Oh! And then?”
“Dinny wants to show me England. While there’s any sun I suppose we shall hang around.”
“Going back to Syria?”
Desert wriggled on his cushions.
“I don’t know: further afield, perhaps—she’ll say.”
Michael looked at his feet, beside which on the Persian rug some cigarette ash had fallen.
“Old man,” he said.
“Well?”
“D’you know a bird called Telfourd Yule?”
“His name—writer of sorts.”
“He’s just come back from Arabia and the Soudan; he brought a yarn with him.” Without raising his eyes, he was conscious that Wilfrid was sitting upright.
“It concerns you; and it’s queer and damaging. He thinks you ought to know.”
“Well?”
Michael uttered an involuntary sigh.
“Shortly: The Bedouin are saying that your conversion to Islam was at the pistol’s point. He was told the yarn in Arabia, and again in the Libyan desert, with the name of the Sheikh, and the place in Darfur, and the Englishman’s name.” And, still without looking up, he knew that Wilfrid’s eyes were fixed on him, and that there was sweat on his forehead.
“Well?”
“He wanted you to know, so he told my dad at the Club this afternoon, and Bart told me. I said I’d see you about it. Forgive me.”
Then, in the silence, Michael raised his eyes. What a strange, beautiful, tortured, compelling face!
“Nothing to forgive; it’s true.”
“My dear old man!” The words burst from Michael, but no others would follow.
Desert got up, went to a drawer and took out a manuscript.
“Here, read this!”
During the twenty minutes Michael took to read the poem, there was not a sound, except from the sheets being turned. Michael put them down at last.
“Magnificent!”
“Yes, but YOU’D never have done it.”
“I haven’t an idea what I should have done.”
“Oh, yes, you have. You’d never have let sophistication and God knows what stifle your first instinct, as I did. My first instinct was to say: ‘Shoot and be damned,’ and I wish to God I’d kept to it, then I shouldn’t be here. The queer thing is, if he’d threatened torture I’d have stood out. Yet I’d much rather be killed than tortured.”
“Torture’s caddish.”
“Fanatics aren’t cads. I’d have sent him to hell, but he really hated shooting me; he begged me—stood there with the pistol and begged me not to make him. His brother’s a friend of mine. Fanaticism’s a rum thing! He stood there ready to loose off, begging me. Damned human. I can see his eyes. He was under a vow. I never saw a man so relieved.”
“There’s nothing of that in the poem,” said Michael.
“Being sorry for your executioner is hardly an excuse. I’m not proud of it, especially when it saved my life. Besides, I don’t know if that WAS the reason. Religion, if you haven’t got it, is a fake. To walk out into everlasting dark for the sake of a fake! If I must die I want a reality to die for.”
“You don’t think,” said Michael miserably, “that you’d be justified in denying the thing?”
“I’ll deny nothing. If it’s come out, I’ll stand by it.”
“Does Dinny know?”
“Yes. She’s read the poem. I didn’t mean to tell her, but I did. She behaved as people don’t. Marvellous!”
“Yes. I’m not sure that you oughtn’t to deny it for her sake.”
“No, but I ought to give her up.”
“She would have something to say about that. If Dinny’s in love, it’s over head and ears, Wilfrid.”
“Same here!”
Overcome by the bleakness of the situation, Michael got up and helped himself to more brandy.
“Exactly!” said Desert, following him with his eyes. “Imagine if the Press gets hold of it!” and he laughed.
“I gather,” said Michael, with a spurt of cheerfulness, “that it was only in the desert both times that Yule heard the story.”
“What’s in the desert today is in the bazaars tomorrow. It’s no use, I shall have to face the music.”
Michael put a hand on his shoulder. “Count on me, anyway. I suppose the bold way is the only way. But I feel all you’re up against.”
“Yellow. Labelled: ‘Yellow’—might give any show away. And they’ll be right.”